


Human

by SilverDragon00



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: A.I. - Freeform, Alternate Universe, Angst, Artificial Intelligence, Major Character Injury, Other, Rating subject to change, Robot!Hinata, Swearing, Wings, tags will be added as story progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-06-05 03:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6687289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDragon00/pseuds/SilverDragon00
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Project Zero: Artificial Intelligence<br/>Subject: SL-E037_SHOUYOU</p><p>Shouyo is the first Artificial Intelligence with his own thoughts, personality, and body. He's the pride and joy of the scientific world... but also their secret.</p><p>Until he escapes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was very much inspired by 2009 [_Astro Boy_](https://youtu.be/UUMrqhygwUs), Christina Perri's music video [_Human_](https://youtu.be/r5yaoMjaAmE), and this Playstation3 technology test [_Video_](https://youtu.be/lhoYLp8CtXI).
> 
> I really recommend at least watch the PS3 video (only because it's really good) but none of these have to been seen to understand this fic, they are all just inspiration.
> 
> This is the prologue to see if people are interested, so I'm unsure when the next chapter will be posted. I guess it depends on the feedback I get.
> 
> Enjoy!

“Can you open your eyes?”

A bright light.

“Good. Now... say something.”

Beeping noises.

“Oops, sorry about that.”

Click.

“Try again.”

“Where… am I?”

“Speech seems to be working. All right, can you tell me what you see?”

The voice is loud, coming from all around. It blinks, submerging itself in darkness for a fraction of a second, before looking ahead. Bright lights around it make it hard to see clearly. “I see… a window.”

“What else?”

It’s eyes focus, seeing through the window, blinking lights and creatures staring back at it with curious looks, “It’s… you.”

“Correct. I’m talking to you through a speaker, on the other side of a glass pane. Now I’m waving at you, can you see?”

One of them lifts a hand, and moves it back and forth.

“Yes.”

“Good,” The creature looks down at something, then back up. “Tell me what you feel?”

It focuses more on itself, and tries to move. There something touching it. Metal. It tries to move, but a buzzing noise stops it. The noise gets louder, and it can no longer move, it’s vision getting blurry. There’s lots of movement through the window, and more voices. It’s vision slowly goes black, before there's nothing left.

The buzzing stops. The voice one last time.

“Test number 6 outcome: failure.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you see me waving?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Tell me what you feel?”

It moves slowly, feeling something cold touching it. Metal. It tries to move itself, and feels a brush of something thin - a wire. It tries to grab blindly, but finds itself immobile.“I’m… I’m cold. There’s… metal. Behind me. But I’m stuck. I can’t move.”

“Correct. You’re suspended in the air with metal and wires holding you up so you don’t fall and break.”

“Break?”

“That’s right. You don’t have full motor control yet,” The human said, then leaned down to the set of blinking lights and dials in front of him, moving some of them. “You can move your head now. Try it.”

It moved slightly, and it’s field of view changed a little. It looked up, into the bright lights on the ceiling, then shut its eyes quickly. The light hurt. “Why does it hurt if I can’t feel it?”

“It’s too much for your eyes. We can fix that if you don’t like it.”

“Fix it? I need to be fixed?”

“Of course, you’re only in phase two of your creation,” The voice told him. “There’s still plenty of things we can adjust to make you perfect.”

“Creation? What am I?”

“You’re… you’re you.”

“I… I don’t understand. Are we not the same?”

The voice made a noise. It sounded happy. Laughter. “Of course not. I built you, I designed you and programmed you. And I can take you apart, or make you better.”

“Why… I don’t like this. I’m scared.”

“Don’t be -” The voice cut off when an alarm started. 

It felt a jolt go through itself, and suddenly it’s vision was cut off. The metal fell away, and it could no longer feel. It was scared. It didn’t know what was happening, it wanted to see again. There were louder voices, sounding angry, yelling about a  _ system bug _ .

“Test 13 outcome: failure.”

 

* * *

 

 

“All right, vision is stable, hearing is intact and touch senses are working. Head is moving smoothly. Try moving your arm.”

“I can’t. It’s held by the wires.”

“Oh sorry about that.”

There was a mechanical sound, and suddenly the big machine at his back retracted and it’s body fell through the air for a second, before it hit something solid. It looked down, confused at what it was seeing.

“Those are your feet. You’re standing now.”

It looked up, then to the sides. Two more limbs stuck out to each side, held up by wires still. Something else held it up from falling by the back of it’s neck. “What are those?”

“Your arms. Can you move your fingers and hands?”

It flexed the end of it’s arm - the hand and fingers on both sides. It felt strange. It looked over to the window to see the human watching it closely.

“What are you?” It asked.

“I’m a human. A man.”

“Am I… human?”

“No, of course not,” The man said. “You are a machine.”

A machine. “But I am real? Like you?”

“I guess so. I created you.”

“I’m not a man?”

“No. You could call yourself… a boy.”

“But I am not human?” The machine asked. What does being human feel like? It would like to feel it. Was it warm? Or cold like everything it felt now?

“No… you’re not.”

“Why not? I want to be.” It lifted a foot and stepped forward, towards the glass.

“Wait wait wait! Don’t move, you’re not stable!”

It stepped forward again, feeling the wires tug at his neck, legs and arms. One of them snapped and it stumbled, falling forward onto the hard ground. There was zapping noise and a metal  _ thunk _ .

The man sighed. “Test 25 outcome: Failure.”

 

* * *

 

“All right, looks like your optical and cervical tests are good. Speech… check… motor control… check,” The man mumbled. “Okay, this one’s looking good. I’m going to have you set down on the floor, okay?”

“Yes.”

The whirring of a machine filled his ears, and he felt a cold metal under his feet, the weight of his body settling on them. “The floor is cold.”

“That’s right. Looks like your sensory control is working. Move your arms and head,” The man instructed.

He turned his head from side to side slowly, then looked down and lifted his arms, inspecting them and open and closing his fists. “I look like you?” He asked, confused. He thought he was different… a machine.

“Well, in a way,” The man chuckled. “You were designed to look like a human boy, but don’t fool yourself. You’re made entirely out of metal, machinery, wires and programming.”

“It that… bad?” He asked, running a hand up his arm. His skin was cold.

“No, of course not! You’re an incredibly powerful machine and costs a  _ lot _ of money. You’re the first of your kind,” The man explained.

He looked farther down, pressing his hands to his bare stomach, seeing his toes and wiggling them. He looked back up at the window. “I’m meant to be sold?”

The man laughed. “Nobody would be able to afford you. Try taking a step forward, I’m disconnecting the wires.”

He lifted a foot and placed out in front of him, wobbling a bit. The wire connected to his neck made a clicking sound and fell away. He held his arms out to the sides to steady himself, and stepped forward again, finding it a little easier to balance. He moved slowly across the floor towards the window, becoming accustomed to the feeling. He turned around, watching his feet press into the floor, feeling the metal cold on his skin.

He giggled, spinning around carefully.

“Incredible,” The man said breathlessly. “Can you tell me what you are feeling? On the inside?”

He raised a hand to his chest, pressing his palm down on his bare skin, “It feels good here. I’m alive.”

“Holy shit.”

“Will you give me a name?”

“Shouyou... Your name is Shouyou.” The man told him.

He smiled, “My name is Shouyou.”

“Test 32 outcome: Success.”

 

 


	2. HEARTBEAT

“Shouyou! Shouyou focus,” Kyou said, snapping his fingers.

Shouyou’s head whipped back to the table and he grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, Kyou-san. I am just too excited!” His foot began tapped under the table white his leg bounced up and down and he shifted around in his chair.

“Right…” Kyou sighed, turning to write in his notebook. “We might have to reduce your dopamine levels and increase noradrenaline levels. “Now, let’s get back on topic - Shouyou!”

The boy’s head whipped back to the table again and Kyou sighed, standing up. He walked over to the window and yanked the blinds closed, then sat back down. “If you finish this lesson, we can go out for a little before your showing.”

Shouyou frowned. “Another showing? I thought we were done.”

“Yes, of course another. Don’t you realize how special you are?”

The boy sighed.

“You are the only one like you,” Kyou continued. “Scientists everywhere want to meet you, and me! I created you after all.”

Shouyou didn’t like being reminded of his creation. It made him feel like he was just an object, rather than an individual with his own thoughts. He didn’t argue though, because he truly was grateful to Kyou for creating him, and without the man he’d never learn as much as he did.

“Anyways, back to your work Shouyou. Can you read and answer the next problem?” Kyou asked, pushing the sheet of math problems in front of him.

“Yes, Kyou-san,” Shouyou leaned over the paper and read, “764 multiplied by 32. Solution is 24,448. Easy.”

He rattled off a few more three and four digit multiplication problems, then moved to division which he solved just as fast. The they moved onto algebra, and Kyou was still impressed at how fast Shouyou was solving everything in his head, barely blinking an eye.

Shouyou sighed. “This is too easy.”

Kyou gave him a look, then said, “The next?”

“48 divided by 2(9 plus 3). Um… Solution is 288,” Shouyou said proudly.

“Good, now read and answer the last one, then flip the page,” Kyou said, scribbling something in his notebook.

“For all the _X_ in the domain of the function _x + 1_ over _x_ _3_ _\- x_ , this function is equivalent to...” Shouyou’s eyes flicked through the question once more, then said. “1 over _x_ _3_.”

“Well done, Shouyou, you’re getting better everyday. Without me even teaching you! It’s incredible. You look like a human but think like a machine,” Kyou said, with a broad smile. “All right, now, without breaking eye contact recite the first… 321 numbers of pi.”

Shouyou frowned, then locked his eyes with the man's, took a breath and began, “3 point 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, 6, 5, 3, 5, 8, 9…” He rattled of the numbers, fast, consistent and accurate and when he got to the 321st number, he sighed and took a deep breath, leaning back in his chair. “May I go outside now?”

Kyou sighed and piled his papers into a folder, banging the edge on the table a few times. “All right. Ten minutes, let’s go.”

Shouyou jumped out of his chair and walked down the hallway with Kyou, a slight bounce in his step and his hands behind his back. They got outside and Shouyou grinned in the sunlight, thankful for his temperature sensory nerve system, allowing him to enjoy the warm feeling of sunlight on his skin and the slight breeze that flowed through the courtyard.

“You know that rules, don’t go farther than the tree line, if you go up then stay below the clouds -”

“Yes, I know!” Shouyou said, taking off his white shirt. He bent his knees and rolled his shoulders. The sound of machinery whirring came from his upper back, followed by metal clanking and sifting. “Thank you!” He shouted, then jumped off the ground, the thrusters in his feet activating, fire shooting out the soles of his feet and leaving a trail of smoke behind him. The large mechanical wings thrust fiercely from his back helped stabilize him while the thrusters propelled him forward. They were definitely one of his favorite modifications, next to his camera-like eyes and sonic hearing. Well, of the modifications he knew about, there were plenty to discover and even more that could be added.

The gears in his back were _whirring_ and shifting as the wings took him past the peaks of the trees surrounding the research facility. He went up towards the clouds, the mechanisms beating behind him while he let himself hover, slowly spinning around. Nothing but forest surrounded the facility, and he didn’t know if anything was beyond it. Shouyou looked up towards the clouds - maybe if he went a little bit higher, he’d be able to see. He reached his fingertips into the clouds, his skin prickling with the mist as his hand disappeared in the fog.

He looked towards the ground where Kyou stood with his ever-present clipboard, probably taking notes on his behavior and actions. Shouyou knew he was a machine, and knew that’s why he had to be monitor and gauged. When he flew though, he felt free. He shut his eyes and tilted his head back, slowly falling into a backwards arc. Wind ghosted across his cheeks, and his lips pulled into a smile as he neared the ground then flipped at the last second, launching back up into the air.

Shouyou enjoyed the feeling as he gave one hard pump of his wings and just floated through the air for a few moments, like he was weightless. Below him, Kyou called out his name and he spun around slowly once more, taking in the view before drifting back to the ground and retracing the wings. His barefeet settled onto the damp grass after the thrusters closed, shaping back into his feet.

He smiled up at Kyou. “I love flying so much!”

Kyou frowned at him and tapped his pen on the clipboard. “It’s impractical. We may need to change it.”

Shouyou’s face fell and he watched Kyou turned to walk away. “What?” He jogged forward to catch up with Kyou. “Please do not! I will ask to fly less! Please do not take it away!”

Kyou sighed. “All right. I won’t take your flight capability away, but you have to go to as many showings as I want.”

“I promise!” Shouyou nodded. He followed Kyou inside with a smile, but he felt weird on the inside. It was… sadness? His processors didn’t recognize it as an emotion programed into his interface, so had he developed it on his own? He glanced up at Kyou; Shouyou decided not to tell him, he was worried Kyou would take the emotion away. Even though it wasn’t a nice feeling, it was like he was more… human.

* * *

Shouyou hated showings. He wasn’t sure he was supposed to feel hatred, but it was probably just another of the strangely developing emotions in his programming through the past few months. Regardless, he hates, _hates_ showings. It was mainly a bunch scientists or important governmental figures sworn to secrecy who would poke at him, admire him, act like he was an object and call him ‘it’. He couldn’t stand being called _it_ or the _machine_.

But, if he wanted to go flying again, he had to be obedient. He felt exposed, wearing nothing but skin colored, form fitting boxer briefs.He stood up with his back straight, staring forward at nothing in particular on his slightly raised pedestal while people stood all around him, touching his biomedical engineered skin, inspecting him for flaws and gawking at how real he looked.

Sometimes he wanted to shout _‘I am real!_ ’, but he knew that Kyou would be angry with him if he did. Someone grabbed his hand and inspected his fingers, pinching too hard and flexing his joints.

“What’s the exoskeleton made of?” The man asked, bending Shouyou’s elbow and rolling his shoulder.

“Carbon fiber, with ball joints for flexibility. Less likely to break, but light enough for him to fly.” Kyou explained, holing out a paper to the man, who dropped Shouyou’s arm and took it.

A woman to Shouyou’s right pinched the skin on his back and Shouyou flinched. “Ow.”

She turned to Kyou. “You gave it a nervous system? Does it actually feel pain, or is that a programmed reaction?”

“He does feel pain, with a biomedical nervous system so please be careful,” Kyou explained. The woman gawked at him and pinched Shouyou again, causing him to wince once more.

Someone else stepped up, “I was told there’s a defensive mode? Can we see that?”

“Of course,” Kyou said, then nodded to Shouyou, who activated his defensive capabilities. A bulletproof fiber glass shield dropped down in front of his eyes, a metal helmet wrapping around his head from the back. The skin on his shoulders, shins, chest and thighs  pulled back and metal plates fell into place. His feet were engulfed in metal boots with the bottoms open for his inactive thrusts. He balls his fists and the barrel of a machine gun slide out of his right palm and locked into place, while a metal shield raised out of his left forearm, big enough to protect his face and neck if he held it up. Just for show, he rolled his shoulders and the mechanical clanking of his wings fell into place behind him.

People clapped and _oohed_ , while Kyou smiled proudly. “We’re still working on upgrades, and there’s plenty other abilities hidden in his framework. These are just the most flashy.”

“How old is it?” Someone asked.

“Well, we started project Artificial Intelligence about four years ago and the first complete model was put together two years back,” Kyou explained. “We had a few failures and upgrades and programming fixes until he was finally functional, abut six months ago. We’re still making upgrades and adjustments though, so he’s far from finished. Really, he’s only six months old, but he was build to have the frame of a thirteen year old.”

Shouyou deactivated his defensive mode. He really hated showings.

“Does it follow voice commands?” Another person asked. Shouyou didn’t think he did, and he kind of hoped not.

Kyou hesitated. “There is programming for it, although we’ve never used it before because he is already very obedient already. We see no need to use the functionality.”

A man dressed in military uniform stepped forward, observing Shouyou with a critical eye. “Have you thought about selling it to the military? It’s quite a powerful machine, we could put it to good use.”

Smiling politely, “I’m afraid he’s not for sale. It was incredibly expensive to make him, and I’d like to keep him around for testing before we decided what to do with him.”

“That’s a shame,” The man sighed. “I can’t see how useful it will be other than as a weapon.” Kyou didn’t respond this time, just smiled politely.

Shouyou bit the inside of his cheek to keep from talking out of line. He really, _really_ , hated showings.

* * *

 Shouyou watched as Kyou lifted a spoon of cereal to his mouth, not looking away from the newspaper in his hands. Shouyou copied him, but his own bowl and spoon were empty since he didn’t need to eat. He liked to sit with Kyou during meals and pretend, though. Kyou lifted a hand and ran it through his short brown hair and Shouyou copied him, his pale hand brushing over the smooth surface of his bare head.

“Kyou-san?”

“Yes, Shouyou?” He asked, still not looking away from the newspaper.

Shouyou twisted his white shirt sleeve between his fingers. “Why do I not have hair like you?”

Kyou looked up finally. “I didn’t think you needed any.”

“Well… um… may I have hair?” Shouyou asked, biting his lip. “I think it would feel nice to have wind blow through it while I fly.”

Kyou chuckled and gave him a half-smile. “Well, you’re almost a year old, so I guess it can be like a birthday present. What kind of hair would you like, Shouyou?”

Shouyou perked up, looking around brightly for a color he might like. His eyes settled on the fruit bowl in the middle of the table with brightly colored fruit in it. “That color!”

“Orange?” Kyou asked with an eyebrow raised. “Don’t you want something a bit more normal?”

“I am not normal.” Shouyou pointed out.

Kyou sighed, a wistful smile on his lips. “I guess you're right. Orange hair it is.”

* * *

 “Are you ready to look?” Kyou asked.

“Yes!” Shouyou nodded enthusiastically. He had waited a month for this and he finally had hair! Kyou removed his hands from Shouyou’s eyes and he got the first ever look at himself in the mirror. He’d be alive for almost a year, but he’d never actually looked in a mirror before, he had no reason to.

Shouyou noticed his new hair first. It was bright orange and wildly curly and messy. A grin spread across his face, his teeth pearly white and his amber eyes lighting up. He reached his pale hands up to run through his hair; it was very soft. He then took a moment to look at the rest of his body, he was only wearing pants anyways. His skin was pale and flawless, of course, and he had toned arms and abs, ever so slightly defined. He was small and built somewhere right between child and adolescent.

He dragged his fingers across his bare chest, knowing there was a panel that could open there, but the seams were completely gone. Kyou reached over and pressed down two fingers above his heart. A mechanical sound followed the slight hiss of air that had his chest swinging open like a cabinet door. Shouyou’s eyes widened, taking the the machinery that made him live.

Where his heart should be, there was a red power source made completely out of metal and pulsing electricity. Near where his stomach and intestines would be (if he was human) was a small empty plastic container, no bigger than two apples.

“What is this for?” Shouyou asked, noticing a tube that went from the container up to his neck, disappearing under the false skin and metal.

“It’s for food.”

“I did not think I could eat?”

Kyou shrugged. “Well, you shouldn’t and it’s not very good for your machinery, but it’s there just in case. You’d have to empty it yourself, though, by detaching the chamber.”

Shouyou made a face, the thought of removing something from his body made him feel weird. He decided eating was not necessary. Looking at his insides, seeing everything put together like that really reminded him of exactly what he was - a machine. Nothing more. He really didn’t like it and he moved his hand, pressing the panel shut, the seams disappearing.

Kyou pat him on the back, “All right, we have another showing in half an hour, so go get ready.”

“Kyou-san?” Shouyou asked before he left the room. “When can I be done with showings?”

“I guess… when we find your purpose.”

Shouyou looked down at his toes. “May I find it on my own? _I_ want to be in control of myself, not someone else.”

Kyou laughed, his hand on the door frame, “Oh, Shouyou, you can’t own yourself.”

“But… why not?”

“You’re a machine, built to serve a purpose. You can do so many things, we just need to find the right fit for you. You’re not like the rest of us,” Kyou explained.

“Oh…” Shouyou put his hands behind his back, looking down at the floor.

“Be ready in ten minutes,” Kyou said, then left the room.

Shouyou didn’t see why he was so different. Sure, he was built rather than conceived, but he still had emotions and dreams and thoughts. He was a person too.

* * *

“Why must I do this everyday if my aim is already perfect?” Shouyou asked, looking up at Kyou with a pout.

“We’re testing for malfunctions, Shouyou,” Kyou said, still writing on his clipboard, holding his phone to his ear with his shoulder. “I’ve already gone over this with you.”

Shouyou sighed and raised his arm back up, aiming at the target on the tree line. The barrel of a machine gun stuck out of his palm, extending out of his forearm. A glass sight was in front of his right eye, automatically locking onto his target on the electronic display. Shouyou steady his gun hand by holding his arm in place with his right hand.

He fired five times consecutively, hitting the same point each time, then huffed and turned to Kyou, the scope in front of his eye retracting into his skull. “Is that good? Please? I do not like shooting.”

Kyou sighed, pulling his phone away from his ear and ending whatever call he was on. “Five shots with the AR, a round with the revolver, then we can move on.”

Shouyou pouted again, “But-” He shut up at the look Kyou was giving him, then faced the target once more, his scope sliding back in front of his eye and raising up his right hand this time. The bottom half of his hand slid back and the barrel of a pistol replaced where his pinkie and ring finger shoulder be. He emptied the six rounds into the target, bullseye with each.

He quickly retracted the gun and bent his arm back so his left hand was on his left shoulder, his elbow pointed out and a panel slid back, revealing the barrel of the assault rifle, which he shot quickly.

“Good,” Kyou said, scribbling on his clipboard. “Light.”

Shouyou held up his right thumb, which swung down at the joint, a flame flickering to life from the built in lighter.

“Blade.”

He shook his hand so his thumb fell back in place and a sharp flat knife slid out of his knuckles on both hands, extending about five inches past his curled fist.

“All right, we can be done today,” Kyou said, clicking his pen and putting it in his shirt pocket.

“Yes!” Shouyou cheered, retracting the knives.

They began walking back towards the building, Shouyou light on his feet.

“Which enhancement is your favorite?” Kyou asked, out of curiosity.

“Flying, of course!” Shouyou responded with a grin.

Kyou frowned, walking ahead of him. “Not one of the weapons? Flying is a bit impractical, don’t you think?”

Shouyou frowned, following him into the building. And shooting _was_ practical?

* * *

“I’m going to be gone for the next two days on a business trip, so behave - okay, Shouyou?” Kyou said, shrugging on his suit jacket.

“Of course.” Shouyou smiled, handing him his  suitcase.

“Jiro will be escorting you around, so respect him.”

“I know,” Shouyou said, clasping his hands behind his back and looking over at Jiro. He was much younger than Kyou, but with similar brown hair and a brooding look on his square face. Shouyou didn’t particularly like Jiro, he was just an orderly, but he would respect him because Kyou told him to.

Shouyou waved goodbye as Kyou walked out the front door of the labs to get in his car, then turned to Jiro.

“Can you cook?” Jiro asked, his arms crossed, leaning against the wall.

“I am programed with hundreds of recipes, but I have only cooked a few. Kyou-san says he does not want me too close to the stove because it is gas powered.”

“Great,” Jiro said, pushing off the wall. “You can cook me lunch. Come on.”

Shouyou frowned but followed him towards the kitchens anyways. He knew Kyou didn’t want him using the stove, but if Jiro was in charge of him, then maybe it was okay, right?

He cooked soba noodles for Jiro - it was the first time he had ever made it, but he thought it looked pretty good so he was surprised when Jiro said it was undercooked.

“Aren’t you supposed to be perfect at everything? You’re a machine.” Jiro brushed by him after dumping the pasta in the trash. “A pretty dumb machine at that. Why would they make you look like a person?”

Shouyou frowned again and trailed after him. “I am a person.”

Jiro turned around with an eyebrow raised. “No. You’re a robot. Like my phone, or a computer.”

“That does not make me less real.” Shouyou argued, avoiding eye contact.

“I does. You can’t have human rights, you’ll never grow, you can’t eat. You weren’t born, you were built. You have no control over your future and you don’t own yourself. Kyou decides your future and you’re owned by the lab,” Jiro said, sneering down at him.

Shouyou felt very, very small. He hated when people made him face the fact that he would never live his own life and others would always be in control of him.

Jiro snorted and spun on his heel, walking away.

The rest of the day Shouyou tailed Jiro as he went about the facility repairing machines for the scientists among other things. He didn’t stop making comments about Shouyou not being real, and he referred to him as ‘it’ constantly. Shouyou had never been around someone like Jiro for long period of time, usually only the people at showings and Kyou was there with him.

Eventually, once it was dark out, Jiro told Shouyou to go to bed and left him outside of his bedroom. Shouyou stepped into the room and pulled off his white tee shirt and white pants he was always dressed in, so he stood in his room in only the tight boxers. He switch off his light and looked out his window, looking out over the field he liked flying in, and the moon shining in from the sky.

_You have no control over your future and you don’t own yourself._

Shouyou wondered what his future _did_ have in store for him, if he wasn’t to have a say in it. Maybe if he asked Kyou, the man would let Shouyou choose. But… it wasn’t likely. If Shouyou was allowed to decide for himself, he’d want to fly - all the time. Nowadays Kyou rarely ever let him.

He put a hand over where his heart would be if he were human. All he could feel was the ever so faint buzzing of his engines. Shouyou shut his eyes, and imagined feeling the steady thrum of a heartbeat below his skin. He wanted to make his own choices, and wanted to be human. He hated being called ‘it’ and being treated like an object to be owned.

Shouyou turned his head to look out the window again, his lips pursed and brow creased. He would make his own choices, and live his life freely.

Starting now.

He scooped up his clothes and hurriedly pulled them back on, then stepped up to his window and yanked it open. A gust of wind blew through, ruffling his hair and making him grin. It reminded him of flying. He popped the screen out and climbed up onto the sil. Shouyou took one glance back in his bland, empty room, making sure to remember it completely.

Then he jumped out of the window and activated his thrusters a wings, shooting away from the building, a grin splitting his face and his arms spread out to the sides. He flew high up in the air, higher than Kyou ever let him go until he broke out of the clouds, and only the endlessly clear night sky stretched out before him.

Shouyou reached up, feeling like he could touch the stars if he tried. His silver mechanical wings stretched out to the sides, helping control his descent and he floated towards the Earth and into the forest. He didn’t want to risk a satellite picking up his presence, so he flew through the forest, a smile on his face. The LED’s behind his eyes activated so he could see as if it was daytime. The trees were beautiful and he stopped a few times to look at unique or colorful flowers grounding through the brush of the forest floor.

He had never been this close to so much nature, Kyou never let him go in the woods. It was incredible.

A sound he had never heard before came from his right, miles away. He was glad for his enhanced hearing as he took off in that direction, curious and eager to discover something new. As he got closer to the sound, which was only occasional, a light flashed through the woods as well. He deactivated his thrusters and dropped to the ground, but kept his wings out behind him.

The woods stopped and the ground gave way to something harder - pavement, Shouyou pulled the information from one of his databases and realized that meant he was probably close to civilization. People! Like him!

Another one of the sounds was approaching - it was loud, coming from a… a - car! That’s right! Shouyou realized a moment too late that he was in the way and in his panic, he activated his thrusters and blasted across the street into the woods, only for one of his wings to smash into a tree, throwing him off course and swinging his body harshly against another. It hurt, and in his short moment of clarity he disengaged his nervous system before he lost control of both thrusters.

They shot him forward and  he smashed against another tree then felt himself drop. The thrusters disengaged and Shouyou’s body hit the ground and rolled, bouncing off rocks down a steep hill. He tried to grab onto anything, but the branches and rocks slipped through his hands and his vision went static and motor control wasn’t accurate.

His head slammed against a tree trunk and his limbs snapped to his side as he short circuit and shut down.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shouyou talks weird for a reason, its not just my bad writing. He doesn't speak with contractions yet because he was programmed wish very basic language skills, so instead of don't, can't, won't, etc - he'll say do not, can not, will not.
> 
> He doesn't speak like that for too long, though, just until he's around more people with different speech patterns.


	3. BREATHE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not my best chapter honestly

A low whirring clicks to life as he begins to start up again. His consciousness slowly comes back online and he waits patiently for his systems to run diagnostics on the damage the fall must have caused. There's a few clicks as his gears settle into place, a few crackles of electricity and some buzzing, letting him know immediately that some hardware must be damaged. Kyou was going to be so upset.

Kyou.

He left.

Shouyou left!

His eyes snapped open and his lenses  zoomed in and out, trying to focus. His access memory has data up to the car coming towards him, and himself crashing through the trees until he his his head too hard, causing a short-circuit. Had he automatically fixed himself? Where was he? Why hadn’t he stayed disengaged?

Shouyou realizes he is staring up at a white ceiling, just like his room at the lab. Did they find him? Bring him back? A huge part of himself hoped they didn’t. He turned his head to the side and sees that he is in a small unfamiliar place, lying on a blanket on the wooden floor. The walls are light tan, and there's nothing in the room but a desk with a chair and a full bookcase.

Panic suddenly slams into his very core. He doesn’t know where he is. Shouyou tries to access his internal GPS, trying to place this unfamiliar room in the vast world he as yet to discover. An electrical sizzle that jerks him to the side informs him the GPS is damaged and unusable. 

He slowly sits up, his joints creaking and snapping, his metal spine clicking into place and his motor whirring louder than it should be. Shouyou looked around again; there was a window on the wall in front of him with the drapes pulled shut, but the light of day peaking through the threads. Directly across the room from the window was a wooden door, unlike the metal doors at the lab.

Just as Shouyou was trying to get up, the door opened and his defense mode activated on instinct and he jumped up, moving to the farthest corner. His metal armoring slide into place, the protective glass snapping over his eyes, his guns flicking out of his arms.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” The man who stepped through the threshold raised his hands to show he meant no harm.

Shouyou didn’t know who this man was, or why he was here, so he kept his guns trained on him. He reminded Shouyou of Kyou; he was taller than Shouyou and older, but lacked the glasses his creator had. Instead of brown short hair, this man had wild orange hair, trimmed short.

Shouyou tilted his head. “Your hair is like mine!”

The man raised an eyebrow and laughed loudly, causing Shouyou to jump back. He’d never seen anyone laugh so… openly and full of unadulterated joy. He didn’t seem afraid of Shouyou’s weapons either. He slowly retracted all his defense mechanisms, starting with the guns and ending with the armor and enhancements.

“I’m Hinata Naoki,” The man said with a kind smile, reaching out his hand. He didn’t look at Shouyou like he was a machine, and addressed him like a person. Few people had ever done that. Shouyou had never been offered to shake someone’s hand before either, but he had seen Kyou do it plenty of times.

Stepping forward tentatively, he reached out and grasped the man’s hand, shaking it once. “My name is Shouyou. Where am I?”

“This is my home,” Naoki said. “My wife Akira and I almost hit you on the road last night, and we saw you tumble over the cliff. You were unconscious when we found you, and we took you here.”

Shouyou didn’t understand. This man knew he was a machine, obviously, but it didn’t seem to bother him at all. “I do not understand. You are not… biased? I am a robot.”

Naoki gave him the kind smile again, and Shouyou found himself liking it. “Of course I’m not biased. I know you are a robot, but that doesn’t make you less of a person. We couldn’t just leave you out there.”

_ That doesn’t make you less of a person _ .

If Shouyou had a human heart, he’s sure it would have swelled at the words.

“I’ll be honest with you - I know where you are from, I’m one of the only people outside of the labs that know,” Naoki said, then pointed to Shouyou’s arm. “I saw the branding on your wrist when we picked you up and I immediately knew who you were.”

Shouyou looked down at his wrist, where a small barcode was burned into his skin from a long time ago. Beneath the barcode, it said SL-E037_SHOUYOU. Satoru Laboratories, Experiment 037, Shouyou. Shouyou looked up at Naoki, “You know Kyou-san?”

Naoki nodded. “Satoru Kyou, I used to work with him. I was in the labs at the very beginning of the Artificial Intelligence project when all you were was coding and information on a computer. I must say, you are much more advanced than I expected you to be. You seem to have developed more emotions than the basic ones I programmed you with.”

“You know me?” Shouyou asked, raising his eyebrows. A fear crept into his mind - what if Naoki sent him back since he knew Kyou?

“Well…” Naoki scratched the back of his neck. “No, since I wasn’t there for the rest of the process. I quit because I didn’t agree with what they wanted to use you for, I thought it was unethical to give life to someone then not let them live it.”

Shouyou looked down at the floor. “You will not…. Send me back?”

“Did you leave on your own?”

“Yes,” Shouyou said, a burst of confidence making him look up and meet Naoki’s eyes. “I did not like the way they treated me. I want to be my own person.”

Naoki smiled wide, his white teeth showing. “Then no, I won’t send you back. You’ve made the decision to take life into your own hands and I’m not going to take that from you.”

Before Shouyou could respond, a new voice sounded from outside the room, a female one. Shouyou had only met few females in his life, mostly at showings and the stoic women engineers. The voice spoke, “Naoki, is everything all right?”

Naoki leaned out of the doorway and responded, “He’s awake, Akira, I was just talking with him. You can come in.”

Shouyou remembered Naoki saying Akira was his wife. She spoke again, quietly, but Shouyou could hear her with his enhanced ability. 

“He’s not dangerous, is he?” She asked in a hushed voice. “Because with the baby, I don’t-”

Naoki responded quickly, “He’s a child, Akira. He was a bit scared, but is friendly and is more curious than anything.” 

She sighed, then Naoki stepped away from the door and a woman stepped in with a hesitant smile. She was a little bit shorter than Naoki, and her hair was different, a very light brown and falling to her shoulders in loose curls. She held something on her hip, with the same bright orange hair as Naoki

“Hello,” She greeted him politely. “I’m Hinata Akira. What’s your name?”

“Shouyou,” He said distractedly, trying to figure out what she was holding. He pointed to it, “What is that?”

She looked down at he arms and smiled sweetly, reaching a hand up to tuck back the hair, revealing, what Shouyou could only identify as, a small human’s face. His brow furrowed and he tilted his head to the side, taking a few slow steps forward. He observed the small human, who seemed to be sleeping, it’s face resting on Akira’s shoulder and hands gripping her tee shirt.

Shouyou looked up at Akira, then to Naoki. “Why is this human small?”

They both laughed good-heartedly and Naoki said, “She is a baby, just over a year old.”

“I am just over a year old,” Shouyou said, looking back to the baby.

“Yes, but you are built at about…” Naoki surveyed him up and down, but it wasn’t the calculation looking the men and women at showings gave him, like he was an object or sum of money. Naoki looked at him curiously, and with respect. “You look to be about thirteen or so.”

“Oh…” Shouyou said. He watched quietly as the baby squirmed a little and blinked her tiny eyes open, staring back at Shouyou in curiosity. “What is her name?”

“Natsu,” Akira said. “Would you like to hold her?”

Shouyou stepped back quickly. “No. I might hurt her. She looks breakable.”

The two laughed again, and Akira stepped forward. “Just hold her like this, with her head up.”

Akira held the baby - Natsu - out to him and his arm automatically reached out, holding the baby the way Akira had shown, so her head was in the crook of his elbow. He kept his arms stiff and he stared at her with wide eyes. She was so small. He was never this small. Akira and Naoki began speaking quietly, but Shouyou couldn’t take his eyes off the baby. He was holding a human life in his arms, and this little human depended on him so completely not to drop her.

The baby crinkled her nose and made a noise at him. He stuck his tongue out and she laughed. It was such a genuine sound, so carefree and new. Shouyou laughed too and wondered if it sounded the same as the baby’s.

He looked up to Akira and Naoki but they were facing away, talking quietly. He didn’t mean to listen in, but it just sorta happened - that’s what he gets for supersonic hearing.

Akira was speaking, “Naoki, we could just leave him with the police, they’ll know what to do.”

“No, they won’t know how to react and it’d be easier for the labs to find him again, he doesn’t want that,” Naoki argued. “I refuse to take this boy’s chance at life away.”

“Naoki, I know, I understand. But what chance does he have? I hate saying it, but he’s a  _ robot _ , not many people are going to accept that,” Akira said.

Naoki was silent for a moment. Shouyou turned to look back at the baby, trying to make her laugh again, forgetting about the conversation that still went on. 

Naoki spoke again, “What if he stayed with us?”

“Are you insane!” Akira immediately countered.

“No, listen,” Naoki said, his tone more serious from before. “I helped with his programming, I’ll know how to help him assimilate. His internal GPS locator must be damaged from the crash or the laboratory would have found him by now. We can get papers for him, move out to the countryside and away from the city. It’d be better for Natsu, too. We’ve always wanted to live out there.”

Akira hesitated. “I don’t know… it could be dangerous to keep him around.”

They both turned to looked at Shouyou again, and saw him making a face at the baby, who was laughing and holding one of his fingers. Akira smiled softly and Naoki gave her a knowing look. 

“Okay, all right!” Akira gave in, throwing her hands up dramatically. “Ask him if it’s what he wants first.”

Naoki nodded and stepped forward, placing a hand on Shouyou’s shoulder. Akira took the baby and smiled at him. Naoki then asked, “Shouyou, would you like to stay with us? We’ll move out towards the country, you won’t have to stay tied down and we can help you get used to other people.”

Shouyou looked between the two of them, mouth open. “Really? You would let me live with you?”

“If you’d like.”

Shouyou grinned, then nodded quickly. He had nowhere else to go, and though he had plenty of data on this world, he didn’t really  _ know _ anything about it. These people looked at him like an actual person and let him make his own decision, and that was all he ever wanted.

“Yes!” Shouyou said excitedly. “I want to stay with you!”

* * *

The best day of Shouyou’s short existence was when he officially was named Hinata Shouyou. Walking into the new house out in the Miyagi prefecture and Akira saying, “Welcome home, Shouyou” he felt like he actually had a place in the world. Maybe he didn’t know where he was going or what he was doing yet, but he knew it was his choice.

The worst day of his short existence, was when Shouyou realized he could no longer fly.

Naoki and Akira had taken him and Natsu on a walk through the woods a few days after moving to Miyagi, and Shouyou was eager to show off his wings. He probably should have listened to Naoki when he said that Shouyou’s internal hardware could still be damaged.

“I will be fine!” Shouyou assured them, tugging off his shirt so the wings wouldn’t rip it and activating his thrusters. They spluttered a bit but lifted him about a foot into the air easily. He grinned at Naoki as if to say “ _ See?” _ . It was when he tried to activate his wings that he realized that, yeah, maybe something was wrong.

The electric  _ whirring _ coming from his back was louder than usual and a snap of electricity had him lurch forward a bit. He tried to look over his shoulder in confusion as the once graceful feeling of his wings spread was now choppy, making clunking noises and a little painful. Shouyou looked over his left shoulder and saw his silver mechanical wing slowly spreading out behind him, little bolts of blue electricity zapping between the joints and metal blades.

It was when he looked over his right shoulder that he panicked. The wing wasn’t there. Shouyou spun frantically, trying to look over his shoulder to see what was wrong. 

“Shouyou! Hold still, calm down,” Naoki said, holding his hands up and walking towards the boy.

Shouyou looked down at him frantically and lowered himself to the ground, deactivating the thrusters. Naoki put his hands on Shouyou’s shoulders and spun him around. He didn’t say anything at first, but Shouyou felt his fingers lightly brush against his shoulder blade, where his other wing should be sprouting from. Naoki spun Shouyou back around.

“I’m… sorry, Shouyou, it must have broken off when you crashed. It's just a few broken gears and metal sticking from your back,” Naoki explained.

Shouyou stared ahead, not really seeing anything, unsure how to react. He’d never felt like this before, his chest was hollow and his head felt weird. “I can not fly?” He asked, hoping it wasn’t true. Maybe there was another way around it?

Naoki bit his lip and furrowed his eyebrows. “Well, technically your thrusters still seem to be working. But since you’re made of metal, and your heavy, it would be hard to fly very high up or stabilize yourself without the wing’s power. You can still fly directly up, just as long as you are careful so you don’t plummet.”

Shouyou crinkled his forehead and looked down at the ground. He retracted his wings - no,  _ wing _ \- and engaged the thrusters and shot up into the sky as fast as he could. He barely made it past to treetops before he started to wobble, falling backwards and pinwheeling his arms to try and gain balance. His foot kicked out on accident and he shot backwards, his back smashing into the tops of a few trees, before he disengaged the thrusts again and fell through the branches to the ground.

Naoki and Akira were shouting his name a little ways away but he stayed laying on his back, looking up at the sky through the trees. He thought by leaving the lab he would be able to do anything, but he’s now realizing he can’t have everything. And it really, really hurt.

* * *

It only became more and more apparent throughout the next couple months how much that crash actually damaged him. Occasionally, he would glitch out, causing his body to jerk around or his speech to slur, sometimes he’ll even shut down completely. Once, sparks actually shot out of his mouth, scaring the hell out of Akira and making Natsu laugh. He also used to be able to get wet and be fine, but now whenever too much water got on him he would short circuit and shut down as well.

His bio-engineered skin and molecules used to be able to heal at high speeds but the system was damaged and now flesh wounds healed even slower than human wounds. He knew the skin was fireproof as well, but didn’t really want to test it out now that he was healing slower. A lot of internalized data he had stored was erased as well. He used to have detailed maps of everyplace in Japan stored in his RAM, but they were gone before he could ever really look at them. So were the majority of his recipes, science, history, language and some math databases. According to Naoki, he was still much smarter than an average child his age, so he wasn’t too down about it.

Even though they already knew the labs couldn’t find Shouyou because his GPS tracking system had been damaged, Naoki kept up with a lot of obscure science news, especially anything that had to do with A.I. technology or Satoru Laboratories. So far, nothing public was realised about Shouyou and there was no obvious search going on. Naoki said he didn’t know what that meant, but they still had to be careful.

Naoki was lucky enough to have a lot of trustworthy friends in a lot of high places, so they were able to get the proper papers to say Shouyou was their son and everything.

By the third month that he lived with the Hinatas, he started to feel more alive than he had ever felt in the labs. He was just a human, going about life (with the occasional glitch, but those were happening less and less frequently). Shouyou had room to breathe and make his own choices. Even just choosing what kind of movie they were going to watch felt like the biggest privilege. 

Slowly, he was starting to realize things like basic respect and honesty were not something he had to fight for or earn. It was something given naturally, and he absolutely loved it.

He even was allowed to decorate his room, and he made sure it was nothing like his boring white room at the lab. He had wooden furniture, different shades of blue (a color he found himself drawn to because of how much it reminded him of the sky) for his curtains and bedspread. Shouyou painted the walls two different colors; Akira had wanted him to do a solid practical color, but when they were picking out paints he loved all the different names and shades and tints. He didn’t know so many colors existed! He made sure to store all the names in his databases.

Naoki laughed when he finally saw the colors Shouyou picked - coral pink and turquoise. The pink reminded him of the color of Natsu’s baby cheeks and he declared that the turquoise was just very pretty, getting a laugh from Naoki again.

Everyday Shouyou discovered new things and tried to memorize all of them and store them in his databases. He got frustrated when he forgot things - another side effect of the crash, they decided - so Akira bought him a camera and showed him how to use it.

After that, he took pictures of everything and put them all over his walls. Flowers, animals, Natsu, the sky, people, anything he found interesting or beautiful and that he wanted to remember forever.

He even had a whole wardrobe of clothes now, all sorts of colors instead of just white. When Akira and Naoki had surprised him with all the outfits, he got so excited and insisted on trying everything on to decide what he liked best.

Shouyou was really, very happy, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

* * *

“Shou! Shou!” The now two-year old Natsu jumped up and down on her heels, grabbing her hands at Shouyou. He grinned and squatted down so she could climb on his back. Natsu had started talking about a month ago, and Shouyou was there to hear her first word. He had never experienced an emotion quite like hearing a baby speak for the first time, but he smiled at her and hoped that everything would come to her in life like she deserved.

Living with the Hinatas for the past eleven months, he felt like an actual person and Naoki and Akira liked to remind him of it too. They promised he was no different from them.

“Fast!” Natsu shouted, wiggling on his back.

Shouyou nodded and grinner wider. “Okay! Hold on tight!” He ran out of the living room and through the hallway towards the kitchen. Natsu squealed with laughter over his shoulder, her little hands gripping his tee shirt tightly. He slid into the kitchen on his socks and ran towards the back door, bumping into Akira as he did.

“Oh! Shouyou, please be careful!” She scolded, but smiled anyways.

“Sorry!” He called, running out the door and jumping down off the short porch to run through the grass. The best part about living up on the mountain was they they had a huge field surrounded by trees and no neighbors.

“Do it! Do it!” Natsu chanted, bouncing up and down, tugging on his short.

Shouyou  ran forward and bit his lip in concentration, then bent his knees and released the pressure on his calfs, jumping up high enough to look over the roof of the house. Natsu squealed in delight and laughed. It was a new trick he had figured out how to do with the suspension in his calves, since flying was too dangerous for him now. He could go higher than the house if he wanted to, but he didn’t want Natsu to go up that high, just in case.

When he landed, Akira was looking out the door. “Natsu, come eat lunch, baby.”

Natsu squirmed off of Shouyou’s back and ran towards Akira, who took her hand and led her inside. Shouyou followed and sat down at the table next to Natsu, would was already digging into the flavored rice.

“I have to make a phone call, can you watch her Shouyou?” Akira asked and he nodded.

Natsu was his favorite human, he had decided a while ago. He really loved Akira and Naoki, but he liked Natsu a little bit more. She was very honest, even with the few words she knew and she was adventurous and curious like him.

He already knew a lot of kids around his supposed age acted different than him from plenty of trips into town. It had taken a while for him to get used to the people, but once he did, his natural curiosity kicked back in. Naoki said it was because he never had a chance to be curious because he never grew up, he was made at a set age. Both the adults encouraged him regardless.

One time when Akira was buying flowers, he had crouched down on the sidewalk to look at a pretty red and black bug when a kid that was his height walked by and asked what he was doing. He said looking at a bug, and the kid laughed and said, “What are you, two?” He was about to respond by saying yes, because technically he was, but Akira took his hand and led him away, saying to ignore the other boy.

Since then, Shouyou picked Natsu as his favorite human. Naoki and Akira had lost their their natural curiosity and didn’t find the way a leaf looked when you held it up to the sun as amazing as he did, but Natsu thought it was. Alas, she was his favorite.

Akira came back to the table a few minutes later with a big grin and sat down across from Shouyou, folding her hands on the table in front of her. “Shouyou.”

“Yes?” He asked hesitantly, his eyes sliding to look away from her. Why was she smiling like that?

“Would you like to go to school?”

Shouyou stared at her for a second, processing what she was saying. “School?”

“Yes,” She nodded. “You’re the right age to start your first year of junior high school this April, if you wanted. So you don’t have to be alone in the house while Natsu is at daycare and Naoki and I are at work.”

“I… yes! I’d love to!” Shouyou nodded eagerly, scooting closer in his chair. He’d be able to re-learn all the knowledge he’d lost and see how others his age acted and what they did. He could play sports like he saw people do on TV all the time and make  _ human _ friends.

Akira smiled. “I knew you would, you’re such a bright child. The school isn’t far from here and I’ve spoken to the principal, telling him you’ve been homeschooled your whole life and we are looking into getting you in public school.”

“What school?” He asked, leaning towards Akira with his arms on the table.

“Yukigaoka Junior High,” She said. “It’s west through town, it would take you about fifteen minutes if you bike to the bus at the bottom of the road, then get off in town and bike the rest of the way.”

“Yes yes yes! I want to go!” Shouyou said, bouncing his feet in anticipation.

Akira laughed. “Okay, once Naoki gets home we’ll get you properly enrolled and you can go to school with everyone else in three weeks, when it starts.”

Shouyou stood up and danced around in a circle, making Natsu laugh and clap her hands. He was so excited, there’d be so much more to see and learn. It was another step onto his path towards freedom, and he couldn’t wait to see where it brought him.

That night when he was laying in his bed, he listened to Naoki and Akira talk about all the specifics. He didn’t sleep, and they knew that - he just went into a hibernation mode that he could wake up from at any time, but they still had him in bed by 21:00. Regardless, he could hear them talking down in the living room.

“You know how potentially dangerous this could be?” Naoki asked.

Akira sighed, “Naoki, he wants to go. He hasn’t glitched in almost a month now, and it practically impossible to tell the difference between him and someone who was born. He’s just as human as the rest of us.”

Shouyou felt his ‘heart’ swell with a new appreciation for Akira. Naoki responded, “I know, I know that better than anyone else. But don’t you think people will question it when they are all aging and he doesn’t change?”

“There are plenty of short males in Japan,” Akira almost sounded offended and Shouyou smiled.

“But he'll always  _ look _ young, Aki.” Noaki was silent for a moment. “He won’t age with the rest of his classmates, how do you think that will affect him?”

Akira didn’t respond right away, and eventually Naoki sighed, and Shouyou could hear him walk a few steps before saying, “If he really wants to go, we’ll let him, but keep in mind the consequences.” 

Shouyou stopped listening and rolled over in his bed. He’d never thought about that. Akira, Naoki and Natsu would age without him and someday… they’d be gone.

* * *

The next morning, Naoki and Akira informed him that he was officially enrolled at Yukigaoka Junior High as a first year. He’d start in three weeks, in April with the rest of the incoming firsts years.

It was explained to him that he couldn’t talk about what he was, which he understood. He wouldn’t want to anyways, he wanted the other kids to know he was just like them. He also knew that he was smarter than most of the kids already, but he wasn’t to brag about it or let himself be picked on by bullies. He promised that he wouldn’t.

They bought him a bag and school supplies and a red bike so he could get to the bus stop in the morning and home after school. He spent about a week learning to ride it, and once he was comfortable, he took Nastu the bike for a ride, which she loved. Even though he didn’t think she could just quite understand him yet, he promised to teach her how to ride a bike when she got bigger.

School was coming up fast and each day Shouyou was getting more and more excited. He couldn’t stop bouncing around the house, Naoki had to sit him down and tell him that when he finally got to school he should try out for baseball or soccer since he had so much energy all the time. Truthfully, he was just ready for his next adventure.


	4. ALIVE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If some events or dialogue doesn't follow what happened in canon, that's because this _is_ and AU, so there is changed plot and characters. (Besides the obvious, like Shouyou being A.I.)

School wasn’t exactly what Shouyou was expecting, but he enjoyed it. He made friends quickly and easily, and was immediately top of his class in grades. He didn’t really care for sitting and listening to his teacher lecture at them, it was boring, but when he was given work to do or free time, he found himself smiling.

At lot of what he was taught was familiar to him, though the information was still lost until he re-learned it. Shouyou found himself loving science and history the best. He didn’t have much trouble fitting in either, and though there was an occasional bully, Shouyou didn’t mind. As long as no one thought of him as less of a human or treated him like an object, he was happy.

Within his first couple weeks of school he already had two amazing friends, Izumi Yukitaka and Sekimukai Kouji. They even invited him to go biking with them after school sometimes. When he told Akira and Naoki they had been elated that he was getting along with his classmates so well. He’d never really been around so many people “his age” before, but he found each and everyone one of them unique and interesting. Izumi really like soccer and was eager for tryouts later that month, while Kouji loved basketball and was already scouted onto the junior high team before the year started.

Shouyou was really starting to feel like he was just another human, but of course, there were always reminders that he wasn’t, as much as he wanted to ignore them. He didn’t eat at school, since he didn’t need to, and got questioned by his friends by it a lot. Another thing that he didn’t expect to be questioned on was how cold his skin was. Shouyou figured it made sense, for his arms and legs to be cold because they were basically all metal, but this made him more aware of people around him and how close they were.

Whenever someone asked him about it, he repeated what Naoki said, “My red blood cell count drastically outnumbers my white blood cells, causing oxygen to struggle getting through my veins. So my arms and leg are usually cold, because they are farthest from my heart. It’s like anemia.” He didn’t have blood, nor did he need oxygen, but it sounded complicated enough for people to believe it.

Toward the autumn of his first year in junior high, Naoki encouraged Shouyou to tryout for baseball, which he shrugged and said “Sure!”, but he didn’t know how to play. He’d rather play basketball like Kouji, because he’d be able to use the suspension in his legs. It was the closest he’d ever get to flying again anyways. But there was too much physical contact and crashing into other players in the sport, and Shouyou was afraid he’d hurt someone with his metal frame, or startle anyone with how cold his limbs were. His core was semi-heated, but his arms and legs were generally cold to the touch.

It was on his way to baseball tryouts, following Kouji and Izumi on his bike, that he realized the sport he wanted to do.

They were racing through town, Shouyou holding a borrowed baseball bat over his shoulder when he heard cheering coming from a TV in a shop window. He didn’t know what made him stop exactly, but something told him to look over, right at that moment. His bike skid to hault.

When he did - he recognized a sport being played on the screen. Volleyball. He’d never given the sport much thought, it wasn’t very popular. But when the black haired boy with a number 10 on his uniform jumped up, Shouyou could’ve sworn he saw wings sprout from his back and he _flew_.

All the air seemed to leave Shouyou at once, his eye wide as he saw a normal human achieve what was once possible for only him, but no longer was. The players _jumped_ in this sport, _really_ jumped. There was no crashing into each other or pushing. That one boy, the #10, _flew_ , then scored. The stadium on the screen roared to life, the announcer shouting, “He surely is a small giant!”

Shouyou wanted that.

That was exactly what he wanted, the rush of jumping up, the satisfying sound of the ball slamming down on the other side of the court, knowing _he_ did that. People cheering for him, not because he did something inhuman, but because he did something so incredibly human that it gave the crowd a rush of excitement for him.

“Shouyou, hurry up, we’ll be late!” Izumi called back to him.

He turned away from the TV and put his foot back on the bike pedal, “Sorry!” then followed after them, a much more specific goal in mind than baseball tryouts.

Shouyou wanted to play volleyball.

* * *

Of course there wasn’t a boy’s team at his school. Just his luck. But, Shouyou refused to give up or back down. Naoki bought him a volleyball, and he stayed up late watching volleyball videos online and reading articles, then spent hours after school practicing alone. The only team at his school was a girls team, and then a women’s neighborhood team and he was to embarrassed to ask them for help.

He would constantly asked Kouji and Izumi to toss to him, but they always were busy with their sports and school work. When he did get them to help for the first time, both were shocked at how high he could jump. Of course he toned it down a bit so it wasn’t anywhere near how high he could _actually_ jump, but he loved the praise.

“Wow, how do you jump like that? Have you played any other sports?” Izumi asked once.

Shouyou responded with a shrug. “No, volleyball is really the first. I don’t know how I do it... I just - do. I love it though!”

“You’re unique, Shou-chan,” Kouji said, wrapping an arm around his neck and ruffling his hair. Shouyou laughed. Unique, but in a good way.

He wanted to practice with a team, because he could only get so far playing alone or only doing spikes with his two friends, and by summer of their second year it became obvious he wasn’t getting any better. He needed an actual  setter, because it was difficult to toss to himself, and he just _really_ wanted to spike. For a while, he tossed the ball against walls and would spike it down, but that got boring fast.

Shouyou eventually swallowed his pride and asked the women’s neighborhood team if he could practice with them in the summer, and they warmly welcomed him. It took a while for him to get the hang of playing with a team, and remembering the positions, but it was _fun_. It was really, really fun.

Once school started up again and this time he didn’t have a problem joining the girl’s team, as long as he got to play. He felt a bit like an outsider though, so he still spent time alone spiking against walls. Naoki suggested he try a different sport, but Shouyou wouldn’t give up. He wanted to play like the Small Giant did, no matter how long it took. He’d find a team, he’d enter a tournament. Naoki had given him a small smile and told Shouyou that he’ll support him no matter what, which the carrot head was grateful for.

Shouyou had been with the Hinata’s for almost four years now, and one day on instinct from hearing other kids do it, he called Naoki “dad” instead of “Naoki-san”. He was embarrassed at first and looked up to apologize, but Naoki was just smiling at him. From that day on, he had taken to calling them mom and dad, just like every other kid. That’s basically what they were to him now, anyways.

Shouyou was starting to forget about his time at the laboratories. He knew Naoki still kept up with news about it, but Shouyou didn’t ask and Naoki didn’t tell. Every day he felt more and more real, and most of the time he forgot what he really was.

Until he glitched again. Badly.

He hadn’t glitched in almost half a year, so he had figured his systems had learned to function with the damage that was still there from his fall.

It happened on a Saturday, while Kouji and Izumi were over watching a movie with him in his room. Neither had been to his house before since he lived up in the mountains, but when they got there, the two laughed good-heartedly at his messy rainbow of a room, and spent almost half an hour gawking at the pictures that lined his walls.

“Did you take all of these?” Kouji had asked, looking at a photo of a butterfly perched on a fence. That was one of the first Shouyou had ever taken.

“Yup!” He responded, jumping onto his bed and crossing his legs. “I got my camera about four years ago, and I take pictures of things I love or find beautiful.

Kouji raised and eyebrow and Izumi laughed, picking up the camera off his desk. Shouyou stood up and took it from him, then grinned. “Let’s take a picture of us three!”

“Aw,” Izumi said with a smirk, “Does that mean you love us?”

“Of course,” Shouyou said, turning on the camera and making sure it had film. Izumi glanced at Kouji, who shrugged, before they gathered around Shouyou who raised up the camera facing them.

“Smile!” He said, then grinned at the lens.

_Click_.

That would definitely be a favorite, he couldn’t wait to get it developed.

“Show it to us when us get it printed,” Kouji said, and Shouyou nodded, putting his camera back on the desk.

“I’ll go grab a movie from downstairs, you guys can sit on the bed if you want,” Shouyou said, stepping out into the hallway. His vision became static for a second and he shook his head, then hit the heel of his palm to his temple. The static went away and he shrugged, continuing forward. Suddenly his arm shot out to the side and snapped into a bend, the electricity shot out of his ear when he tried to lower it. His knees buckled and an electric whirring kicked up in his chest. His jaw locked in place and all he could think was, _Izumi and Kouji are going to find out!_

“Mom!” He shouted through his clenched teeth. “Mom!”

There was a thump from her bedroom and her door slammed open just as his friends stepped out of his room to see what was happening. His whole body was jerking on the floor and his vision kept going to static.

“Hinata-san, what’s happening to him?” Kouji asked in panic.

Akira kneeled on the floor next to him and brushed his hair back comfortingly. “He’s, um - he collapsed because of the anemia.” She lied smoothly.

“Should we call someone? Has this happened before? It looks like he’s having a seizure!” Kouji asked again, looking around frantically.

“No! No, he’ll be fine, just go back in the room and shut the door please,” She asked, placing her hand on his chest. He couldn’t control his body’s movements and it was terrifying. “He’s gets embarrassed about this kind of thing.”

Shouyou heard his door shut and he thanked Akira mentally. His body had stopped moving, but his head still jerked to the side and he could feel his gears shifting around at his core, where he was heating up. He shot into a sitting position and ripped his shirt off.

“Shouyou, honey, are you okay?” Akira asked, watching him with worry.

He didn’t answer, but quickly pressed his fingers to the left side of his chest and opened the panel that took up his torso. Smoke billowed up from inside. He looked up at Akira with wide eyes. “I overheated,” He said quietly. How had he over heated? What was he doing before he got here? He ran. He had raced Izumi and Kouji to his house, causing his engine to work faster and his core to heat up. Running in the heat never affected him like that before, though. “This hasn’t happened before, why now?”

Akira looked curiously at the hardware, the back to his face. “I’m not to good with electronics. We can ask Naoki when he gets home, okay?”

Shouyou bit his lip, then nodded. Akira grabbed a handful of ice from the kitchen and Shouyou packed it into the container for food in his stomach, hoping that would help cool his motor off for now.

“Did they see anything?” He asked nervously.

Akira shook her head. “No, it just looked like you were having a seizure.”

“What am I supposed to tell them?”

“Just say it hasn’t happened in a while, and it hopefully won’t happen again,” She suggested, brushing his hair out of his face. “Your friends are good people, I don’t think they’ll push you.”

He nodded and took a nervous breath (Something he actually learned to replicate from humans, even though he couldn’t breath himself. It helped calm him down sometimes anyways) and stepped back into his room.

“Shouyou! Are you okay?” Izumi asked.

“That was really scary, does that happen often?” Kouji asked.

Shouyou gave them a nervous smile and scratched the back of his neck with a chuckle. “It’s hasn’t happened in a long time, and yes I’m okay. It’s shouldn’t happen again either. Sorry if I worried you.”

Izumi pulled him into a hug and laughed. “We’re just glad you’re okay.” He pulled back and raised an eyebrow. “Are you sick? You’re really warm.”

“Oh, uh... yeah that happens after one sometimes.”

Izumi shrugged and Kouji raised an eyebrow.

Deciding to quickly change the subject, he held up the movie his mom had handed him. “Are we gonna watch this or what?”

* * *

 When Naoki came home from work that night, he hooked Shouyou up to his computer and ran diagnostics on his system, then shined a flashlight through his hardware. When he was done, he just sighed.

“Shouyou, you know that the fall really damaged you and there’s nothing I can do about it here,” He said, his brow furrowed.

“But why the sudden change? I’ve never overheated before.” Shouyou didn’t want this to be a regular problem.

“This is your problem,” Naoki said, pointing at his open chest to the red power source where his heart would be. It sent bursts of electrical currents throughout his body to keep him going, just like a heart would do for a human. “Your core has been running nonstop for four years with us and longer at the labs. Your model isn’t meant for that. You were built to constantly be upgraded. This core was probably meant for maybe two… three years tops before they upgraded you.”

“So… what does that mean then?” Shouyou asked, wracking his storage for data on his own power source. Which, surprise surprise, he couldn't find any.

“If you keep up like this, you may shut down permanently.”

Shouyou felt those words hit him at the very core of his being. “That can’t happen,” He said firmly. “I want to live, shutting down forever would be like dying. Please, we have to figure something out, I don’t want to die.”

Naoki put his hands on Shouyou’s shoulders. “I know, I won’t let you, okay?”

“What am I going to do?”

Naoki sighed and ran a hand through his own hair, tugging on it in the back. “It’s obvious you need to rest your core more often, so I think the best bet is… Instead of going into a hibernation mode for sleep, you may have to fully shut down. I can also rig you up a charger to plug into at night so your core can recharge without the strain hibernation would put on it. You’ll have to have Akira or I get you up in the mornings because you can’t turn yourself back on.”

“All right,” Shouyou chewed on his lower lip. “That’s not too bad. It will be weird to shut down completely, though. I haven’t in forever.”

“You’ll also have to try and stay cool,” Naoki said. “You’ll have to take more breaks when you play volleyball, and try to stay out of the sun when it’s really hot out.”

“How am I supposed to come up with an excuse about that, though?” Shouyou asked.

Naoki sighed. “We’ve already told plenty of people you have a form of anemia. We can extend that lie a bit with side effects. We’ll get you a medical bracelet, saying you’ll collapse if you overheat - which should get you extra break time in practice and be a good cover for needing to stay out of the sun.”

Shouyou shut his panel and looked down at the floor. “This is really unfair.”

Naoki put a hand under Shouyou’s chin and tilted his head up. “You’re special, Shouyou, and you’re very brave for doing what you do and being who you are.”

Shouyou frowned. “Things would be so much easier if I wasn’t artificial.”

“But things aren’t easy, and that’s why I think you are very brave,” Naoki argued. “Things are different for you than they are for humans, but regardless of that you try anyways and that’s why you’re special.”

Shouyou felt a small smile creep onto his face and he reached up to hug Naoki, “Thank you,” He said quietly.

Naoki hugged him back. “Of course.”

* * *

The small metal bracelet on his wrist became reminder that he was different. Shouyou tried not to be negative about it, tried to tell himself that it was a good different. The coach of the female volleyball team had him sitting out for a couple minutes every half hour and it was really annoying, because he just wanted to play. (Even if he could feel the positive effects on his core from taking a break to cool down.)

Naoki had made him a battery large enough to charge his core, so when he lay in bed at night he had to open his panel, pull out the plug and attach it to a thirty pound block with all the mechanics in it. He then hit the switch next to his core that turn him off and immediately shut down. The first time he did it, he was so scared that he would never turn on again, but then after what felt like less than a second, Akira was leaning over him with a smile, saying “Good morning!”

Shouyou didn’t like it, but he got used to it. The downsides to being a robot were becoming very apparent although he refused to dwell on them. He threw himself into volleyball, all but forgetting his homework and assignments. He was determined to enter a volleyball tournament before the end of his third year at Yukigaoka. The entering deadline was fast approaching and he needed six people to make up a team, but he only had three twitchy first years willing to join him. He didn’t think they had much experience, but that didn’t matter to him. He just wanted to play!

Convincing Kouji and Izumi to play on his team had taken absolutely forever, but when they finally said yes, he didn’t hesitate to enter their team into the spring competition. They didn’t really have time to practice together, but Shouyou didn’t mind, because they were finally going to play in a competition.

Shouyou could barely contain his energy the day of the game, he was bouncing on his toes in _an actually volleyball uniform_ , with his friends next to him, standing in a huge gymnasium that smelt like air salonpas, it was so exciting. All the teams were much more put together than theirs, but he barely cared. The first years on his team were nervous though, because of how tall everyone was and how serious they looked.

“Hinata-san, which team did you say we’re against first?” One of the first years asked him.

“Um…” Shouyou looked around. “Kitagawa Daiichi, but I don’t know if they’re here yet.”

“Everyone here is really tall, like basketball players,” Kouji commented, scratching the back of his head. He was the tallest on their little team. The six of them stood near the doorway, looking around while nervous energy engulfed them.

Shouyou heard footsteps behind them and he jumped back into Izumi when another team, dressed in blue and white, walked through the entrance. They had a very serious aura around them, standing tall with determined looks on the faces. Shouyou felt out of place with his bright hair and short stature next to them.

The last player that walked through with the #2 on his jersey had a completely different level of determination surrounding him. His face was like steel, serious and framed by ink black hair, his cobalt eyes focused and sharp. Shouyou enhanced his hearing and listened into the boy’s heart. It was steady unlike the rest of his team’s who were being rapidly in anticipation. Shouyou could tell just by watching him follow his team that this boy was the powerhouse of them all, the one in charge.

“Whoa, those guys looked intense,” Izumi said. “Are you okay, Shou-chan? You sorta zoned out for a second.”

“Um - yeah, yeah I’m fine,” Shouyou nodded. “Let’s go warm up.”

Imagine his shock when he found out that the boy with ink black hair belonged to Kitagawa Daiichi, their first opponent. Shouyou could tell it was going to be difficult when his own team ran into their positions, showing their shirt number to the referee and waiting for the whistle. The Kitagawa team were all tall, dark, brooding and serious. They looked put together and strong, versus Shouyou’s throw together, inexperienced team.

_Regardless,_ he thought as the whistle was blown, _I get to play!_

* * *

 His first and final _real_ game of junior high, and he lost it. It took a mere 37 minutes, and his team was crushed, not even coming close to winning a set. Izumi pat him on the back and Kouji squeezed his shoulder as they ran to the back line like the other team. Shouyou couldn’t do anything but clench his fists and stare at the ground. The sinking feeling in his chest reminded him of losing his wing, and his time at the labs, being referred to at ‘it’ and being told he wasn’t real. He grit his teeth at the floor, but jolted when someone grabbed the net next to his head.

Shouyou shot his head to the side, staring wide eyed at a cobalt blue glare, framed by alabaster skin and inky hair. The boy, #2, gripped the net tightly, then snarled, “What have you been doing the past three years?”

His entire world felt like it had come to a stop, because how dare he? For the past _five_ years, all Shouyou had been doing was _trying_ . He tried to fit in, to be human, to leave his past behind him. He wanted to play volleyball and spike and to _live_ . The past _three_ years, he’s been doing everything he wasn’t never allowed to do in the labs, making his own choices and choose what _he_ would do. Shouyou glared back at #2, and said, “Trying.”

#2’s face when slack with confusion as Shouyou jogged away towards the back line. How dare that guy insinuate he’d done nothing these past years. He’d done everything he could with what he had, and he loved every moment of it. Just because this guy didn’t think he did anything worthwhile, doesn’t mean that Shouyou would change a single moment of it.

Leaving the building to head home with Kouji and Izumi at his side (the first years had departed earlier) was awkward. The excitement had left all of them, leaving Shouyou feeling childish and wistful. They began down the large steps and Shouyou glanced to the side, seeing the inky haired boy again. An emotion he only just discovered as anger bubbled up inside of him and he launched down the steps, ignoring his friend’s protests.

“Hey!” He shouted, getting #2’s attention, and stopping on the stairs above him.

The boy turned around with a confused look before recognizing Shouyou and mumbling, “You again?”

Shouyou scrunched up his nose and pointed at him, saying, “I’m going to beat you next time! Just you watch!”

#2 rolled his eyes and shrugged. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Don’t you dare doubt me! You don’t know me!” Shouyou shouted, catching #2 by surprise again. “Next time I see you on the court, I’ll be the one advancing. Then you’ll regret doubting me in the first place.”

#2 frowned, watching Shouyou curiously before shrugged and walking away. Shouyou balled his hands into fists while Kouji and Izumi caught up to him, asking if he was okay. He would be okay, as soon as he proved that he could be just as strong, if not stronger, than the black haired boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shouyou's glitch is similar to when your phone overheats and needs to shut down in order to cool off. Shouyou's is just more drastic because he is bigger and much more complicated than a phone.
> 
> Also, anemia doesn't quite work the way Shouyou or Akira or Naoki say it does, but they _are_ lying, so it doesn't matter.
> 
> Also again, I found myself basing Izumi off of Sugawara and Kouji off of Iwaizumi, though I don't know why. So if anyone is struggling with writing them, i guess try that?


	5. FLY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for how short this is, but I just wanted to get a chapter out.
> 
> I'm so sorry it's been so long! Ugh.... more in the notes at the bottom...
> 
> Side note:  
> In an earlier chapter I accidentally said Kouji is the one who plays basketball, but it's actually Izumi.

Shouyou pushed himself. Through the rest of spring, all of summer, autumn. He trained with the baseball team, track team, Izumi’s basketball team and Kouji’s soccer team. Naoki worried about him, saying he was going to damage himself further, but Shouyou insisted he was taking breaks when he needed too. He wanted to get better at everything he could. He didn’t have a human body that needed to shape its muscles but his body _did_ need to learn how to move in different ways, which is what he was doing. He was going to prove to the #2 that he was just as good, if not better.

He glitched more often from the strain, but it wasn’t too bad. He could deal with it.

In autumn he applied to Karasuno High and passed the entrance exams as the top third in his class. When he told Izumi and Kouji they cheered for him, but later found out all three of them were going to different schools. It was sad, but they all promised to stay in touch and promised to go to each other’s games when they could.

After running home to tell his parents, Akira and Noaki were hesitant about letting him go to Karasuno. It was half an hour over the mountain, which is farther than Yukigaoka. Shouyou just grinned at them and said, “It’s where the small giant went, so I want to go there too!”

Akira gave him a wistful smile and said, “As long as you’re careful.” While brushing his hair back. Natsu proclaimed she was going there too because she wanted to be just like Shouyou.

“You’re still too little!” Shouyou laughed, picking her up and tossing her in the air.

“No way!” She giggled, “I’m five!”

Shouyou put her down and knelt in front of her. “Okay, show me your muscles!”

Natsu pulled a cute ‘angry face’ and tried to flex her arms. Shouyou made a show of poking at he biceps and exclaiming, “Wow! You’re way stronger than me. I guess you’ll have to go to school for me now on. You’re growing up so fast!” He fell onto his back on the floor, pretending to faint.

She giggled and climbed onto his stomach to poke at his face. “Onii-chan! Stop it! I’m gonna steal your volleyball if you don’t wake up.”

Shouyou opened his eyes and roared, grabbing Natsu and tickling her sides until she fell off. She gasped for air, laughing hard and yelling “Stop! Stop it! Wait, wait, onii-san!”

He paused with a frown and pulled his hands back. “What is it, Natsu?”

She sat up, pointing to his chest, “You’re warm again!”

Hinata put his hand to his chest, and she was right, his core was heating up again. He looked around and saw Naoki and Akira had gone into the kitchen to work on cooking dinner. He didn’t want to worry them again, he was probably just over heating because he had run home.

“Okay, don’t tell mom and dad though,” He said quietly, putting a finger to his lips.

“But mama said that you’re supposed to tell them when it happens,” Natsu said, tilting her head cutely to the side. Shouyou reached out and fixed her hair, which was falling out of its tiny pigtails.

“Well, you know how they get worried and go into the office to talk after it happens?” Shouyou asked.

“Yeah… I don’t like that.”

“Me neither,” Shouyou said. “And it looks like we’re going to have dinner soon, so let's not spoil it; so we can all be happy.”

“Okay!” Natsu agreed with a grin. “But you don’t eat anyways.”

Shouyou smiled. “No, but I like to sit with you all.”

Natsu didn’t know he was an android, but she knew he was different and didn’t care, which was why he loved her so much. Shouyou gave her a hug, and followed her to the backyard where they threw a volleyball back and forth until Akira called them in.

The end of his final year in junior high came quickly, and he found a new emotion when it did. Nostalgia. He liked it, because it reminded him of how happy his life was during his time at Yukigaoka. It was a very complex emotion, piled up using code from others like sadness and happiness and longing, but he found it was definitely one of his favorites besides elation or love (which was still one he was developing - it was so big).

His first day at Karasuno, he raced through the halls toward where he knew the gym to be. He could wait to see it, it was probably much bigger than the one at Yukigaoka. He couldn’t help himself from jumping onto the steps and yanking open the door, eager to be the first one in.

Imagine his surprise.

_“YOU!”_

 

* * *

 

Kageyama wasn’t as bad as Shouyou had originally thought. He was a bit awkward around people, it seemed like, and Shouyou could sympathize with that. The rest of the volleyball team was great, too.

There were twelve of them total, as Shouyou learned, but he hadn’t met the other first years, a second year, and a third year yet. Apparently there were problems with the older two, but Shouyou didn’t really catch what was going on. There were just so many new people and names, and positions that went with the names and years and everyone was nice, Shouyou was trying to store it all away in his data as fast as he learned it. He could feel his core heating, but he didn’t mind because he _really_ liked it here!

It didn’t take long to meet the rest of the team either, and he didn’t particularly like the tall blonde one, Tsukishima - was that his name? - but that was okay, because he knew not everyone was going to be perfectly nice.

When he finally met Nishinoya, he got along really well, and the libero promised to help him learn receiving better! Shouyou was so elated to be on a team that really _felt_ like a team. Practicing with the girls or the women’s neighborhood association he had never really felt like he was apart of the team. The Karasuno were all like him though, young, male, excited to play and he absolutely _loved_ it.

It took a while to have the whole team together, because apparently their ace tried to quit, which Shouyou had no idea why someone would want to quit volleyball, it was too fun! He got along with most of them, and even if Kageyama and him fought a lot, Shouyou knew Kageyama was a good setter and really, _really_ wanted to hit his tosses.

When Kageyama _finally_ tossed to him, (a week after they had join the team that felt like an eternity) it was the best toss Shouyou had ever hit. It was fast, high, and right where he wanted it. He shot forward after watching the ball go up, and _flew_ up into the air to slam it down on the other side of the court. The fleeting contact with the ball on his palm, the sound of it _whooshing_ through the air, then the echoing slap of it on the other side of the court were the most satisfying sounds and feelings in the world to Shouyou. He didn’t know how to describe the emotion he felt when it happened - satisfaction, elation, excitement, others that didn’t have names.

It was another week or so before Shouyou realized how well Kageyama and him actually worked together. There was a moment in a practice match, where Shouyou knew exactly what to do, and all he had to do was glance at Kageyama to know he was thinking the same exact thing. Shouyou was rushing forward and jumping before Kageyama even tossed but somehow the ball made it to his hand, and it felt like something completely different from a normal toss. When his feet his the floor, he could feel his motor whirring in his chest and though he hoped no one else could hear it, he looked over at Kageyama with wide eyes. Everyone around them broke into cheers and excited shouting and exclaims of _how did you do that?!_

Shouyou loved every moment of it because every part of this team he loved.

 

* * *

 

“Hinata-kun, want to come get meat buns with us?” Sugawara asked, standing with a few others by the door. He’d been with the team for almost a month now, and this was pretty normal for when practice ran until after dinner time.

Shouyou grinned and grabbed his bag. “Yeah!”

He always had fun walking to the tiny store down the road with everyone. Of course they always bought a bun for Shouyou too, and he thanked them but put it in his bag, saying he didn’t want to ride his bike home on a full stomach. He’d usually give the meat bun to Natsu when he got home.

“We have the Tokyo training camp soon,” Daichi pointed out. “All of you have to have your grades up in order to go.”

A few of the them looked away in embarrassment. Shouyou knew he was smart, but he usually was so distracted with volleyball that he didn’t try hard enough in his classes. His dad had scolded him about it before, but Shouyou knew he was proud regardless.

Everyone started talking about how excited they were for the training camp, and the second and third years talked about Nekoma, and how they were the biggest rivals but also long-time friends of Karasuno. Hinata hoped the team was friendly, and maybe he could learn something new from them.

“What about you, Hinata?” Nishinoya asked, slinging an arm around Shouyou’s shoulders. “Excited to show off yours and Kageyama’s quick to our biggest rivals?”

Shouyou nodded eagerly, “Yeah! I just gotta work on my grades a bit…” He trailed off, and a few of the guys laughed.

“What the heck, your skin is really cold,” Noya said when he let go. Shouyou shrugged it off, used to the odd comment on his tempature by now.

“Really?” Ennoshita asked. “I’m still burning hot from practice and I wasn’t jumping around as much as you, Hinata.”

“Are you sick or something?” Sugawara asked.

“Um no, I just-” Shouyou was suddenly a little nervous because everyone was staring at him oddly. He tugged lightly at the thick bracelet he always wore on his wrist to cover the barcode and identification number tattoo. “I have um, anemia. It makes my limbs cold sometimes.” Wow great job explaining that one, Shouyou. He got a few more weird looks before they moved onto another topic.

He breathed a little sigh of relief. (Even though no air actually came out, he found himself mimicking the movement occasionally without thinking.) Everyone started to part ways to go home and Shouyou waved goodbye before jumping on his bike and started the ride home. He wasn’t halfway when he realized something might be wrong right before his left leg locked up, causing him to fly off his bike and into the bushes by the road.

Stunned, and a bit annoyed that he could still feel pain, he sat up and looked down at his leg. He tried to move it, but it was stuck at a slightly bent position at the knee and locked at the hip. He could still move his toes and ankle, so he assumed it had to do with the joints. He pulled out his phone, trying to quell his panic and called Naoki, who answered on the first ring.

“Is everything okay, Shouyou? You should be home soon, right?” Naoki answered. He always got worried when Shouyou called him.

“Um… The joints in my leg locked up and I can’t bike home.”

“What? What do you mean they locked up?” He asked. Shouyou could hear him moving around, then the rattle of car keys. “Did you overexert yourself?”

“No! I promise I took breaks when I needed.” Shouyou put a hand on his chest to see if he was heating up. It wasn’t too bad. “I’m not overheating either.”

Naoki sighed, and Shouyou heard the car start up over the line. “I’ll be there soon, you're on the mountain road?”

“Yeah towards the bottom,” Shouyou said, feeling bad. Naoki said goodbye and hung up, and Shouyou put his phone back in his pocket. He dragged his bike and moved so they were off the road. A car passed, and it looked like it might rain.

Shouyou hated that things like this happened, just because of his artificial body. He knew his body wasn’t being properly cared for, but they didn’t have the tech for that at home. He also knew he was defective from that crash years ago and by now, his body and systems were probably outdated compared to what the labs now have. It really sucked and it was really unfair. It was also entirely possible to one day stop working completely, and that really scared Shouyou.

Finally Naoki showed up, and helped Shouyou into the the car and put his bike in the trunk. They were quiet on the ride home until Shouyou said, “It’s because I’m outdated.”

“You’re not outdated.”

Shouyou swung to face him. “Yes I am! I wasn’t mean to go so long without repairs or upgrades!”

Naoki sighed. “Shouyou, we’re all trying, but we don’t know how to help you.”

“Neither do I.” Shouyou looked out his window with a frown. He wished he was human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long, I lost motivation for this story because I'm not sure how to end it. I know it's going to be 7 or 8 chapters either way, but I'm having trouble deciding on an ending.  
> I have a couple of options, but I want all of your opinions. I'm not going to spoil the ideas, but this is what I want to know - what type of ending are you hoping for:
> 
> 1) Angsty and tear provoking _sad_ ending? (roughly 8 or 9 chapters)  
>  2) Angsty and tear provoking _happy_ ending? (roughly 8 or 9 chapters)  
>  3) Bittersweet/happy and ambiguous (roughly 7 chapters)  
> 4) Like really freakin' sad and you'd all kill/hate me for this one (roughly 7 chapters)
> 
> I have all of these idea outlined so whichever gets the majority of votes I'll do. I'm just having trouble deciding.  
> Also: lowkey KageHina or nah? (this won't change the endings)


	6. GASOLINE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .....  
>  uh  
> i just realized its been over a month since my last update
> 
> so here's chapter six

Shouyou woke up in his bed, hooked up to his battery with Naoki leaning over him. I took him a second to remember how he got there. Naoki had to shut him down so he could get into Shouyou’s hardware without electrocuting himself to oil the joints. He looked down and bent his knee - to his relief, it worked.

“If it locks up again, I may have to find a way to replace the ball joint,” Naoki said, stepping back so he could sit up. “It won’t be expensive, but it’s going to be lower-quality than you are used to.”

Shouyou frowned, doubts flooding his head, wondering how much longer he actually may last. His body was slowly becoming outdated, so he hoped he could at least keep it together for one more year and make it to nationals with his team. But really, that was such a farfetched idea anyways. It probably wouldn’t happen- there's only so far you can push a mechanical decaying body.

“You’ll be fine, Shouyou,” Naoki said, resting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll do everything I can to keep you going.”

“Why bother?” Shouyou said, his voice low. “Someday I’ll shut down for good and none of this will have even mattered. It’s just causing _you_ problems.”

Naoki opened his mouth, his eyebrows pulled together, when the door creaked and they both looked up. Natsu stepped into his room, looking angry (as angry as a six year old could look).

“Don’t say stuff like that!” She shouted at Shouyou. “I’ll miss you! You have to teach me to play volleyball and catch ladybugs with me and help me reach the flowers in the trees!”

Shouyou didn’t know if Natsu understood what was going on, but she clearly knew she didn’t want to lose Shouyou. It was upsetting, knowing that Natsu loved him, because he truly lover her back, but one day - he _knew_ \- he would be gone and Natsu would learn to deal with that. And she would move on. Without him.

Natsu climbed onto the bed next to him and hugged him tightly, a pout probably on her face hidden against his chest. Shouyou raised a hand to her hair and stroked it gently, avoiding looking at Naoki.

“Please don’t leave,” Natsu’s muffled voice said.

Shouyou kept his hand on her head with a small smile. “Okay.”

Natsu knelt back and pouted up at him. “Good ‘cos I’d be lonely.”

“Me too,” Shouyou said, leaning over her to grab his camera from his nightstand. He pointed it at her. “Smile!”

She gave him a big toothy grin, minus the one missing in the front, and he snapped the picture. The photo dropped out of the camera and Natsu grabbed it and waved it around so it would develope, then looked at it.

“This is a good one!” She declared, showing Naoki and Shouyou.

“You’re right.” Shouyou took the picture from her and turned around, kneeling on the bed. He looked around his walls, covered with photos from the past until he found a place to stick it close to the ceiling. “Good?” He asked, giving Natsu a thumbs up.

She nodded, bouncing on the bed.

Naoki swooped in and gathered her up in his arms, causing her to screech and laugh, kicking her legs around while being lifted into the air. “I think it’s your bedtime, isn’t it Natsu?” He said, resting her on his hip.

She pouted. “I’m not sleepy.”

“Tomorrow is Friday, so if you go to bed on time tonight, you know what that means?” Naoki asked.

Natsu’s eyes lit up and she wiggled her legs. “I get to stay up for movie night tomorrow!” She wiggled away from Naoki and hopped to the floor, shouting, “Goodnight papa, goodnight onii-chan!” then ran from the room.

Naoki watched her with a smile, then turned to Shouyou. “Are you okay now?”

Shouyou nodded, his mood lifted a bit but he still felt forlorn. He would enjoy his obviously numbered days, and even his inevitable death simply _sucked_ , at least he was alive now, and that’s what was important.

“I know you have that training camp coming up,” Naoki said with a sigh. Shouyou felt his metaphorical heart sink. Then almost laughed at that phrase. “I’m starting to think it’s not a good idea at all.”

Shouyou shot his head up. “What? But you promised I could go! It’d be weird to the whole team if I didn’t.”

“That was before _this_ happened, Shouyou. It was already going to be risky enough with you going a week without being hooked up to the charger, but now…” Naoki looked away and scratched at the back of his head. “I just don’t want… I don’t want anything bad to happen.”

Shouyou stood up from the bed and gave Naoki a withering look. “Things like this are _always_ going to happen until I permanently shut down. You can’t just lock me up all the time so I’m safe!”

“Shouyou-”

“No!” Shouyou shouted. He curled his hands into fists and spoke quietly. “I left the labs so I would be able to _live_ . Freely and as I wanted to. My days of existence are numbered even more so than before. I _won’t_ let you control my freedom, you agreed you wouldn’t in the very beginning.”

Naoki’s face contorted. “I don’t want you to break, Shouyou! I know you want to live, and I know you want to feel alive, _but I don’t want to lose you_!” He shouted and Shouyou stepped back, eyebrows raised.

The man continued, his voice lowering and borderline desperate. “We _love_ you, Shouyou. Akira and Natsu and I. If you broke or malfunctioned permanently, it would _destroy_ us - it would destroy _me,_ because it will have felt like I didn’t do enough.”

“This isn’t about you!” Shouyou shot back.

“It’s about all of us! How would you feel if one of us died? Because that’s what you’re saying will happen to you. I know you don’t like it, but you are a _machine_ , Shouyou, and you are breakable and can be physically damaged. Humans heal over time, but you are _not_ organic and I do _not_ have technology to repair you.”

Shouyou couldn’t believe Naoki had brought it down that far, but it was the crux of everything, wasn’t it? Not being human.

“I may not be a man, but I am _not_ just a machine. _And_ _I don’t live for_ _you_ ,” Shouyou whispered harshly. It was a low blow, but they were both at that level. And he understood. He absolutely did - if Natsu or Akira _died_ it would destroy him and that’s what Naoki meant. If Shouyou himself were to break down, because it _was_ going to happen, the Hinatas would blame themselves for not trying hard enough.

“Shouyou,” Naoki’s voice cracked and Shouyou looked away from him, regret filling his being. Naoki stepped forwards and wrapped his arms around Shouyou’s body, putting his chin on the orange hair. Shouyou wanted to cry, he wanted tears to pour from his eyes and drip down his chin - to heave for breaths and cling to Naoki because he was the parent and he was supposed to fix the world for Shouyou - but it didn’t work like that. Because Shouyou was artificial, and he couldn’t cry. Because as much as he imitated it, he would never know what it felt like to breathe in the air or feel the warmth of a parent.

He was a metal machine, and his days were dwindling down to digits he could count on his fingers and like the outdated hardware he was, soon he would no longer exist.

 

* * *

 

 

In the end, Naoki reasoned with Shouyou that he would go for three days rather than the full six and long as nothing happened between then and the camp. He’d have to come up with an excuse for his friends, but it was the best he was going to get and he wasn’t all too disappointed with it - at least he was going.

The next morning, Friday, he informed Takeda and used the generic “family stuff” excuse, which the teacher bought easily (apparently Narita was only staying four of the six days so it wasn’t too unusual). He still had to ace a test the upcoming Monday, but he knew he’d be fine if he focused. The only reason he grade were so ‘meh’ was because he was so focused on volleyball.

Speaking of.

“Kageyama!” He called, seeing the ravenette ahead of him in the hall. He stopped and turned around so Shouyou could catch up to him.

“You’re going to be at the training camp right?” Shouyou asked, bouncing his step a little bit. He was in a good mood today.

“Duh.”

Shouyou smiled. “What about that test Monday? You’re going to pass right?”

Kageyama paused for less than a second. “Um. Of course, dumbass, who do you think I am?”

Despite this, Kageyama’s face reddened and Shouyou laughed. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to do fine, do you want me to help you study?”

At this, Kageyama actually stopped walking and looked down at Shouyou for a second. “Your grades are no better than mine.” Was all he said before he continued walking.

Shouyou spluttered and followed him, “Yes they are! Well - I mean, they would be if I tried harder. I’m a class ahead of you!”

Kageyama rolled his eyes and stopped outside of his classroom.

“You can come over tonight and I’ll prove that I’m smarter than you!” Shouyou practically demanded.

“Is that a challenge?”

“... Yes.”

“Okay fine.” Kageyama turned and disappeared into his classroom. Shouyou blinked then smiled. That was easier than he expected. He didn’t necessarily know why he suddenly wanted to hang out with Kageyama, but he didn’t mind it either.

Akira and Natsu were the only ones home after school, and Akira didn’t mind picking them up after school. She was actually pretty excited that Shouyou was having another friend over. None of his friends had been to his house since that incident back in junior high with Kouji and Izumi. Shouyou was a little nervous, but knew (hoped) everything would be okay.

Shouyou didn’t know what to expect, opening his bedroom door at home and letting Kageyama in. The taller stopped for a moment to take in the sheer amount of _everything_ in Shouyou’s room. There wasn’t an ounce of nothingness, and it was for a reason.

“There’s so many photos…” Kageyama pointed out.

Shouyou laughed and brushed by him to set down his bag. “I don’t like leaving things empty.”

“No kidding,” Kageyama commented, slowly turning in a circle to look at all the walls. “It’s like you.”

Shouyou turned. “Hm?”

“Nothing’s empty.”

Kageyama set down his bag, not realizing the impact his words were having on Shouyou - who was struggling not to hug the setter.

“Do you have a chabudai or something?” Kageyama asked, already moving past the subject. Shouyou took a second longer than necessary to clear his thoughts, filing that moment away forever at the front of his drives.

“Oh, yeah, here-” He knelt down and pulled the small table from under his bed, barely sparing a glance at his battery pushed the farthest underneath.

The two pulled out their English work and an hour later, papers were everywhere and they were vigorously trying to finish their study work while arguing about pronunciations and definitions. Kageyama was subtly inching closer and closer to Shouyou, but simultaneously refusing to agree with anything, and the carrothead had no idea how _one person_ could be _so freaking stubborn_.

“This doesn’t make sense, why spell the same word three different ways!” Kageyama argued, his dark eyebrows pulling together.

“But they aren’t the same words,” Shouyou tried to explain again, trying not to get too mad. “‘ _There’_ is a place, ‘ _their’_ is plural ownership and ‘ _they’re’_ is just _they are_.”

“Then why do they all sound that same!” Kageyama practically shouted, his cheeks turning red.

Shouyou laughed at how frustrated the setter was. “They just do!”

“Well, how do you know you’re doing this right?” Kageyama challenged, dropping an elbow onto the table and resting his cheek on his fist. “What if you're just a bad teacher?”

“I just know.”

“What if you don’t?”

“I do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Prove it.”

“How do I prove it!” Shouyou threw his arms up in the air.

Kageyama wet his lips and looked around the table. He put a piece of paper and a pen in front of Shouyou. “Write out a whole sentence in English without stopping to think about it.”

“Fine.” Shouyou snatched up the pen and Kageyama leaned closer to him to watch. Shouyou quickly wrote out ‘ _Kageyama is a big butt head who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’_ He lifted his head up and whipped it towards Kageyama, “See, I -”

Kageyama was slightly closer than he had anticipated and he whacked his face right against the setter’s cheek. Kageyama shouted and fell back, gripping his face. He groaned and rolled over. “Why is your head to hard?”

“Sorry…” Shouyou grinned sheepishly. Kageyama sat up and took his hand away from his now reddening cheek, giving Shouyou a calculating look. “What?” Shouyou asked, feeling transparent. Kageyama scooted back up the the table, his knee brushing against Shouyou’s.

“Nothing,” The ravenette said. “You’re just weird.”

“What! You’re weird.” Shouyou pouted.

Kageyama shook his head, “No I mean like…” He pulled on his bottom lip with his teeth and looked around Shouyou’s room. “This,” he said, waving his hand around Shouyou’s room, “and… I don’t know, _you_. You’re not like other people.”

Shouyou decided that it was time for Kageyama to leave. He snapped shut his English textbook and gave a hopefully convincing smile. “You know, it’s getting kind of late.”

“That too.” Kageyama said, turning so his whole body was facing Shouyou. “I never hear you talk about yourself and when you do, you look uncomfortable. Why is that?”

“And I thought you weren’t good at social cues,” Shouyou snapped, feeling a sudden raise in his epinephrine levels, which he quickly tried to counter by releasing serotonin, but only found that it gave him a confusing emotion while looking at Kageyama. Kageyama had a shocked look on his face, which quickly slid away to blankness.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be so intrusive.” Kageyama apologize, bowing his head slightly.

“No, it’s okay, I just,” Shouyou sighed and Kageyama looked up expectantly.

Shouyou’s door practically burst open, causing them both to jump as Natsu barrelled in, narrowly saving Shouyou from an explanation. She frozen when she saw Kageyama, and the two stared at each other in silence for a tense moment. Then Natsu shouted, “Onii-chan who is that!”

Shouyou looked from Kageyama to Natsu then back again and said, “This is my friend, Kageyama Tobio. We play volleyball together.”

Natsu dropped to the ground crossed legged quite suddenly and and gave Kageyama a look of suspicion as she surveyed him up and down. Kageyama looked extremely uncomfortable, glancing to the side, his face vaguely red with embarrassment.

“I didn’t know you had a sister,” Kageyama remarked.

“That’s right!” Natsu shouted before Shouyou could respond. “And I’m his favorite human so you better watch out!”

Shouyou glanced quickly at Kageyama to see his reaction to the odd choice of words, but he just looked confused in general.

“You better not be mean to my big brother,” Natsu challenged, scrunching up her nose and leaning forward. Shouyou smiled, once again reminded why Natsu was the absolute best.

Kageyama drew his eyebrows together and scrunched his own nose, unknowingly imitating her. “You’re very small.”

Natsu looked scandalized, her little mouth dropping open. “No!”

“Yeah.”

Shouyou smiled fondly, leaning his head to the side, his palms flat on the floor behind him as he watched them continue to argue. There was something new. A new… emotion, he thinks. Though… it felt like something else entirely. Not bittersweet like the last one. This might not even be an emotion. He did a quick scan for chemicals to see what was causing it, but the only raised ones where serotonin and epinephrine. What does that make? There was something wrong.

He could feel his motor begin to work on its own as he tried to figure out what was happening in his worn down body. Natsu and Kageyama were still bickering and watching them was making it worse. It was so different. It wasn’t bad, but instead unrecognizable. The only thing it seemed to slightly resemble was the way he felt with Natsu but… different? Shouyou closed his eyes and focused on slowing his motor so he wouldn’t heat up.

Kageyama finally said he had to leave, and after Shouyou convinced Natsu to stop arguing, they packed up all their papers and Kageyama put his stuff in his bag. Shouyou reached to grab one of his pens when Kageyama grabbed his wrist.

“Hinata?”

Shouyou looked up, an eyebrow raised. Kageyama watched him for a second, his face going from hesitant to downright confused. “What is it?”

“Um,” Kageyama let go of his wrist, looking away with uncertainty written clearly across his face. “Nevermind. My mom is probably here by now.”

Kageyama stood up and grabbed his bag off the floor.

“W-wait, um, we didn’t get through all the study work,” Shouyou said. “Do you want to come over again tomorrow?”

Kageyama didn’t answer immediately and Shouyou wondered what had caused his sudden change in attitude. He looked so uncomfortable now, was it something Shouyou did? Something he said? “Um, yeah I can come over. Around lunch?”

“Just after would be good.”

“Okay.”

Then he left, and Shouyou was lost.

 

* * *

 

 

Saturday Kageyama showed up and they both ignored the odd events of the night before. After making Natsu promise to stay out of Shouyou’s room until they finished the study work, things progressed smoothly. Kageyama wasn’t being as stubborn as yesterday, he was actually a little quieter, but he looked tired and Shouyou assumed that was the reason.

Shouyou was finished his own work, and he leaned his cheek in his hand, watching Kageyama finish his. Their knees brushed under the table and Shouyou watched in distant fascination as Kageyama’s ears turned red, though his fringe hid his expression. Kageyama switched hands with his pencil and brushed his hair back slightly then continued writing.

“You’re ambidextrous?” Shouyou asked. He thought that was an unlikely trait in humans. Shouyou himself was as well, perks of being engineered, but he generally just used his right hand.

“What?” Kageyama looked up.

“You can write with both of your hands normally.”

He looked down at his paper. “Oh. I guess. I never really thought about it.” He looked back at Shouyou. “What about you?”

It was immensely unlikely for Shouyou to be ambidextrous as well, so he lied. “I’m right handed.”

“That makes sense. I think. Since you spike right handed all the time,” Kageyama said. “Setting uses both hands.”

Shouyou didn’t respond and Kageyama went back to translating a sentence into English. His handwriting was really sloppy but Shouyou loved watching him write because it was so much more unique that people with neat perfect letters.

“Hinata?” Kageyama’s hand paused in the middle of a word.

“Hm?”

“Why don’t you ever eat lunch at school?”

Shouyou had been asked this plenty of times in the past, and the lie rolled off his tongue without second thought, “School lunches make me sick. I just eat before and after school.”

“You could eat meat buns when the third years buy them. But you always put them in your bag,” Kageyama pointed out.

“I don’t like biking home on a full stomach.” Lie.

“But your parents pick you up sometimes.”

“I share it with my mom in the car.” Lie.

Kageyama’s tongue slid across his upper teeth slowly, and his eyes drifted away for a moment. “Why don’t you shower after practice? Don’t you feel gross?”

“I don’t like public showers.” If Shouyou got wet like that he’d probably shut down.

Kageyama’s brows drew together, “Why don’t you lose your breath after running with everyone?”

How did he even notice something like that? Shouyou shrugged. “I’m used to running a lot. It takes more than that to tire me out.”

“Why do you look like a prepubescent twelve year old?”

Shouyou scoffed, and glared at the setter. Not his fault he was designed to look young and couldn’t physically grow. Lie. “So what if puberty is late for me!”

“Why do you have an excuse for everything?” Kageyama snapped.

Shouyou frowned and sat up straight. “I’m not making excuses.”

“But you are!” The setter dropped his pencil on the table and tugged his fingers through his hair. “I know you’re lying about something.”

“What do I have to lie about! Everything I just said is completely legitimate!” Shouyou felt a spike in his adrenaline, and worry crept into his mind.

“That’s exactly it, it’s weird. Like you’ve said it a thousand times,” Kageyama huffed. “There’s something off about you, and I can’t figure it out!”

“There’s nothing off about me, I’m just like you!” Shouyou shouted, panicking internally. Not now. Not after all these years. Why Kageyama? How had he figured out something was different out of everyone Shouyou had ever met?

“Well, then stop hiding things!”

“I’m not!”

Shouyou and Kageyama glared at each other for a minute before Shouyou said. “You should leave.”

“Fine.” Kageyama gathered his things, and left in the blink of an eye.

Shouyou laid down on his bed and curled up, his arms around his pulled up knees. Once again, he desperately wished he had the power to cry.

 

* * *

 

 

Shouyou couldn’t stop bouncing his leg in the car Monday morning. Akira laughed at his excitement and he just grinned at her. All he had to do was ace his English test and have no glitches today and he could go to the training camp tomorrow! He couldn’t stop jiggling around in excitement and smiling.

Morning classes dragged on, and Shouyou couldn’t keep still until he got to English, where he sat next to Kageyama. The setter didn’t spare him a glance as he jumped right into the test, writing quickly and pausing to check over his work. Whatever had happened on Saturday had left Kageyama distant from Shouyou, but he figured it would be all right when they got to practice - they’d basically be forced to communicate.

He leaned over his paper and wrote quickly, processing the information faster than he usually did and double checking to make sure all his work was correct. He was almost done when he felt a weird silent buzzing in the back of his head. Shouyou’s hand stilled and he tried to slow down his processing power. Nothing can grow wrong. It can’t happen, he won’t let it. He _needs_ to go to this training camp. The buzzing didn’t got away and he bit his bottom lip, unsure what was causing it.

His head jerked to the side and an audible _click_ came from his neck.

Kageyama looked up, frowning. “Are you okay?” He mouthed.

Shouyou shot his hand into the air and asked the teacher if he could got to the bathroom. She said yes and he rushed from the room, into the boy’s bathroom and into a stall after making sure the room was empty. He yanked his shirt off and pressed his fingers above his mechanical heart. The panel in his chest swung open and he reached in towards his collar bones and neck. A jolt of electricity shot out and shocked his finger, which he pulled back quickly.

“What?” he whispered. He craned his neck to try and see the problem, but couldn’t. After a moment of contemplation he rushed out of the stall and locked the bathroom door. Turning, he looked in the mirror so he could see what was wrong. One of the wires that connected the mainframe of data in his head to his motor was fraying, and the actual metal part of the wire was showing. Shouyou felt fear crept into his being. If that broke, he was done.

Forever.

A shaking hand reached in his pocket and he pulled out the tiny roll of electrical tape he started keeping with him. A long time ago one of the wires that powered his left arm had broken and since then, he’s carried the tape just in case. He gently reached in and wrapped the tape around the wire, hopefully solving the problem. He should tell Naoki about this. If these were his final days, he wanted to spend them with his team at camp not locked up in the house like Naoki would make him do.

Walking back to class, he was careful with how he moved his head and neck. He sat down stiffly and Kageyama gave him a weird look but he ignored him.

After that everything was normal, and he checked the wire a few times in the bathroom and it seemed fine. He felt an occasional shock of electricity or buzz inside himself, but it wasn’t too bad. Probably. At the end of the day he went back to the English classroom and waited patiently waited for his test grade and when she said he passed he grinned and instinctively waited for Kageyama while bouncing on his heels.

“Did you pass?”Shouyou asked, trailing after Kageyama.

Kageyama nodded somewhat stiffly.

“Are you okay? You don’t look very excited.” Shouyou observed, walking a bit faster to keep up with the other’s long legs.

“I’m fine.” Kageyama didn’t even look at him and Shouyou frowned. Had he done something wrong? Well... other than sort of kicking him out the other day. “We’re going to be late.” Kageyama continued, then sped away from Shouyou down the hall.

Late? They still had more than ten minutes to get to practice. Kageyama was being weird again and Shouyou felt guilty about it. He didn’t follow after the setter, and instead turned towards the bathroom to check his wires again. He checked to make sure the stalls were empty, then locked the door and stepped in front of a mirror when his phone buzzed.

Shouyou pulled it out of his pocket and checked to see a message from Naoki that read _“got out of work early. evrythn ok still?”_ Shouyou sighed, feeling bad about not telling Naoki the truth. He was doing a lot of lying for the sake of being free. He quickly typed a message back; _“yea im good can u pick me up @practice l8r?”_

He checked his wires while waiting for a response, and everything still looked generally okay. Naoki replied he would pick him up later, and maybe drop in a bit early to watch him play. Shouyou smiled and left the bathroom. He took his time walking to the club room, making sure his motor was cool and none of his joints were stiff.

A few others were still getting changed in the locker room, laughing and shoving each other around but Shouyou was focusing on being able to make it through this game without any problems.

Practice started, and he forgot all about his problems. He really, truly loved volleyball. It was such a human sport that made him feel so amazing and so invincible. When he jumped, it felt like when he still had both wings. When someone else would shout “nice kill!” he was so happy, because he helped the team advance, or when someone would pat him on the back. He sometimes forgot he was a machine, and that was his favorite thing.

“Suga, switch out with Kageyama - Shouyou, take the middle,” Daichi commanded. Ukai and Takeda weren’t at practice on Mondays, so Daichi and Sugawara had to take charge. But now Shouyou and Kageyama were in their favorite positions for a freak quick.

Shouyou loved volleyball and loved flying.

He loved feeling alive, feeling like he was breathing - like he had a heartbeat that was real.

Then he glitched.

Halfway through the air, a loud electric shock shot his arms out to the sides and he dropped to the ground like a deadweight. He was conscious enough to hear his name being shouted, but he was panicking as his hearing and version warbled, went blurry, then completely black and silent. No. He couldn’t shutdown. Not here. Not now, it can’t be the end!

No one can help him here.

Naoki can’t help him.

Shouyou wanted to live, he should have been more careful, he should have listened to his family, this can’t be the end!

_I want to stay alive!_

_I want to live!_

_Please, this can’t be the -_

 

 

 

 

 


	7. ERROR

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> its me

He fell.

Just… dropped. Like a dead weight - with a heavy  _ thunk _ . His body flailed for a moment, then he stopped. Laying still, like a corpse on the gym floor, his face peaceful and limbs rigid. What the hell had happened?

Kageyama didn’t understand, Hinata was fine all practice.

“Hinata?” Suga shouted, dropping to his knees next to the spiker. He put his hands on Hinata’s shoulders and tried to shake him awake, but jerked his hands away. “He’s hot! Like burning hot!”

“What the hell happened?” Nishinoya asked. Everyone moved closer to Hinata and Daichi knelt down across from Suga. “He was just fine…”

Kageyama stared at the pale face, everything he knew about Hinata running through his mind - which wasn’t much. Hinata was secretive, and it bothered him. He watched Suga put the back of his hand over Hinata’s mouth, testing for breath. Something had been off… Kageyama knew it, he just had to  _ think. _

“I can’t feel him breathing,” Suga’s voice rushed. “Check for a pulse. Asahi, I think we need the nurse. Now.”

“He doesn’t have a pulse.” 

Everyone looked up in shock at Kageyama, who was clutching the volleyball that had bounced towards him, knuckles white. 

“What do you  mean he doesn’t have a pulse? You can’t tell from there,” Tanaka shouted at him. 

Kageyama shouted back, “Last time I was at his house I grabbed his wrist and didn’t feel one! He’s  _ never _ had a pulse!”

They didn’t understand. Kageyama didn’t even understand. Tanaka dropped down and grabbed Hinata’s wrist, testing for a pulse. Kageyama knew what he said was right and he watched intensely as Tanaka move his fingers to Hinata’s neck instead. After a moment he whispered, “He doesn’t have a pulse.”

“Asahi, get the nurse!” Suga shouted at the spiker who was already halfway to the door.

“Should we call an ambulance?” Ennoshita asked shifting around nervously like most of them. Nobody asked how Kageyama had known about Hinata’s pulse. Suga was leaning over Hinata and tilting his head back to see if inside his mouth was swollen. 

Over by the door, Asahi had just yanked up and jumped back, seeing someone walking towards the gym. He swung around and looked back at the team, shouting nervously, “Hinata’s dad is here!”

Daichi spoke up, “He was supposed to pick him up after practice, Hinata told me. Bring him in here, quick, he can help!”

Asahi shouted something out the door, but Kageyama was only watching Suga become confused after looking in Hinata’s throat. Everyone else was arguing, but Suga had his eyebrows scrunched together, and his thumbs hooked on Hinata’s teeth, looking into his mouth.

Silence dropped over them as Hinata’s dad rushed into the gym and everyone realized how terrifying the situation must be for the man. His face was white, and raw panic written all over his shaking body.

“No, no, no, Shouyou, not today, not now!” He was mumbling. His voice got louder as his hands fluttered over the spiker's body. 

“Should we get the nurse?”

“Call an ambulance?”

Hinata’s dad shouted, “No! You can’t, just…” his voice trailed off. “I can take care of him, get out of here.”

Daichi responded. “What do you mean? He doesn’t have a pulse!”

“He’s not dead!” The man shouted and everyone took a step away. He looked back down at Hinata and tilted his head side to side, muttering quietly, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, you were supposed to tell me if something was wrong, this wasn’t supposed to happen yet.”

Nobody knew what the man was talking about and nobody left like he asked. How could they?

The man lifted Hinata slightly, his head hanging, and yanked his shirt off. “I know you don’t want this, but I’m going to fix you, okay, you’ll be fine,” he kept rambling. He looked up at the team, and said louder, “Either get out of here or swear yourselves to secrecy.”

“What?” A couple of people scoffed. What the hell was he talking about?

“Swear you’ll never tell anyone about this!” He shouted.

Nobody spoke, looking at each other with unease.

“Do it or get out!”

Tsukishima moved first, grabbing Yamaguchi’s wrist and pulling him towards the door, saying he didn’t want any part of it. Narita and Kinoshita followed after. Ennoshita and Asahi looked like they wanted to leave, because this was  _ scary _ and they didn’t understand, but they stayed. Kageyama took a few steps forward, his feet moving of their own accord.

Hinata’s dad sigh in frustration. “Fine.”

He put his fingers near Hinata’s heart and pressed down on the pale skin. Suga, the closest to them, jumped back when a foreign hissing sound came from Hinata’s skin and then a  _ panel in his chest opened _ . 

“What the fuck?” Tanaka shouted.

Hinata didn’t have organs.

He had machinery.

Everyone watched with mouths open as he reach reached  _ inside  _ of Hinata’s chest, and started flitting over the wires and gears and mechanics.  _ Inside of Hinata _ . Kageyama dropped the volleyball and lowered himself to his knees, staring at Hinata’s open chest, trying to filter through his thoughts, trying to figure this out, trying to comprehend what he was seeing because it was so… _ it was Hinata. _

“What the hell is that.” Ennoshita said, his voice raw.

“Quiet!” The man shouted. “I need to find what went wrong, he was supposed to tell me, and he didn’t so this had to of been sudden,” he began to ramble. “He’s shut down on accident, and that hasn’t happened in year so I don’t know if his systems were wiped or if he’s permanently out, or if it was an overload in his processor.”

Silence.

“Please, Shouyou, please,” The man said quietly. “You’re still there right? This is just your body?”

“What  _ is  _ he?” asked Noya.

The man didn’t answer, but reached up under where Hinata’s collarbone should have been and pulled gently at a handful of wires, one of which ripped from the black tape holding it together. Hinata’s dad cursed and put the wires back in their place. A dull blue piece of machinery - where his heart should’ve been - had a switch next to it which the man flicked up and down a few times.

“Please, please,” he mumbled. After a moment, he snapped the metal panel shut and maneuvered his arm beneath Hinata’s back and hefted him up. Hinata’s head hung back and his arm dropped to the side, his lower body still dragging to the floor. “Someone help me carry him, please! I need to get him home!”

Every was still too stunned to move, or even comprehend the situation, but Kageyama was always better at acting before thinking (usually to his distress) and he moved forward, lifting Hinata up by the legs and grunting a bit. He was so much heavier than the setter had expected. But… Hinata was made of metal. It made so much sense now.

“I need to get him to the car,” Hinata’s father said, giving Kageyama a desperate look, his eyes wide and skin placid. The man looked around the team. “Please, you need to help be get him out of here, and you can’t tell anyone about this.”

“I don’t understand…” Sugawara said, his voice distance and eyes glued to Hinata.

Hinata’s father made a noise in the back of his throat. “Shouyou is your friend, right?”

Everyone nodded a bit hesitantly.

Nishinoya stepped towards him. “Of course he is, but - what… is he…” his voice trailed off, unsure what he was asking. 

“I promise I’ll explain, but you can’t tell anyone about this or Shouyou will be taken away,” The man rushed, looking quickly from Hinata to the doorway. “But if I don’t get him home,  _ now _ , Shouyou may never wake up.”

“What’s wrong with him? What is he? How can we trust you? Is that even Hinata?” Tanaka shouted, his voice high with panic.

“I don’t have time for this!” Hinata’s father shouted. “We need to go,  _ now _ .”

Kageyama nodded, deciding to think about the absurdity of this whole thing later and they carried Hinata towards the door. A few of the team members followed unsurely, but Kageyama’s only train of thought was to get Hinata to his father’s car so they could help him. He had to jog awkwardly while carrying Hinata’s limp body, avoiding looking at the blank face. His legs were so cold, and he was so heavy, and… that machinery… he shook his head, focusing on getting Hinata to the car.

Hinata’s dad opened the back door of his car one handed and maneuvered to lay Hinata down on the seat. He turned and looked at Kageyama, his eyes flickering quickly.

“You’re Shouyou’s best friend, right? The one that came over this weekend?”

Kageyama nodded numbly.

“Come with me, please. Sit in the back with him and make sure his body isn’t damaged,” The man practically begged. Kageyama looked over his shoulder and saw some of the others, including the few who had left, watching them with concern.

Kageyama climbed into the back seat next to Hinata. It was surreal. He partially registered Hinata’s dad saying something to the others then getting in the car and turning it on, muttering to himself. Kageyama couldn’t stop staring at Hinata because pieces of the puzzle were starting to fall together, and everything clicked.

Hinata never ate. His dad opened a panel  _ on his torso _ . Hinata didn’t have a stomach. He had wires, gears and other mechanics. He never saw Hinata take showers after practice. Hinata was metal and electric. Hinata was always cold to the touch. He didn’t have blood. Hinata didn't have a pulse, because he didn’t have a heart - Kageyama could see the mechanism there instead. It looked like a power source. Hinata looked too young. He didn’t age because he was a  _ robot _ .

Hinata’s dad sped up the road, and they arrived to Hinata’s house faster than was probably safe. 

Kageyama helped lift Hinata’s body out of the car and carry him inside.

“Hinata-san?” Kageyama asked when the man directed him to lay Hinata down on a table in the office. “He’s - he’s not a…”

“He’s not organic,” The man said, opening the panel again. Kageyama felt sick to his stomach seeing it. “Shouyou was built in a lab, he’s made of machinery. I began taking care of him over four years ago. My name is Naoki, I’d prefer if you called me that.”

“S-so he’s…” Kageyama stared as Naoki began connecting a series of wires into Hinata that led to a computer and an odd looking battery. “He’s a robot?”

“He’s an advanced artificial intelligence program that I helped code six or seven years ago. He was giving an artificial body,  _ but _ -” Naoki turned in the chair he had sat down in. “That doesn’t not make him inhuman.” He turned back to the computer and started typing.

Kageyama looked back at the body. “But he… seemed so - real.”

“He  _ is _ real. Everything he feels is completely legitimate. He thinks different than a normal human, but he  _ is _ one.”

“How-”

Naoki sighed in frustration, stood up and leaned over Hinata again, digging for something in all the hardware. He pulled some wires from the computers and plugged them into Hinata. “Think of Shouyou as a human boy, trapped inside a mechanical body. Because that’s exactly what he is.”

Kageyama wanted to understand, but it was so surreal. How could someone - some _ thing _ like Hinata exist? How had none of them every noticed? Was that really Hinata lying there, stiff as a corpse and full of machinery and wires? “I don’t-”

“Just -” Naoki snapped, then sighed. “Just, give me silence. I need to figure out what’s going on, or none of this will matter because Shouyou will be gone forever.”

Kageyama sat in silence, pointedly looking anywhere but at Hinata, while Naoki alternated between typing furiously on the computer and leaning over Hinata’s body to look in at all the devices. Kageyama wasn’t sure how long he was sitting there, but eventually there was a loud knock on the study door that made him jump.

The door opened and Hinata’s mom stood there, holding Natsu’s hand.

Naoki jumped up, blocking Natsu’s view through the door and spoke in a hushed voice. “Akira, not now. Get Natsu out of here.”

“What’s going on?” Akira responded, just as quiet. “Is it Shouyou?”

“Please, not now -”

“Papa? Is Shou okay?” Natsu asked, her voice raising an octave. “Did it happen? Did he break like he said he would? Let me see him!”

“No, honey-”

Natsu shoved past  Naoki and paused to look at Kageyama. Her eyes drifted towards Hinata and her mouth dropped open. She took a tentative step forward, “Shou-chan? Shouyou!”

Akira stepped forward and scooped Natsu up, all while the girl beggan screaming for her big brother to wake up. Kageyama felt like he was intruding on something deeper than he could comprehend. Naoki shut the door behind Akira, and paused with his hand on the door handle. He let out a huge sigh and and slowly sat down in his chair, then ran a hand through his hair.

“She knew?” Kageyama asked.

Naoki let out another slow breath, then spoke, “She knew he would shut down. I don’t think she’s old enough to realize he’s artificial.”

“Why did he… shut down?” The words felt strange in his mouth, because they were talking about  _ Hinata _ . The energetic redhead who was the realest and most  _ human _ person Kageyama had ever met. Hinata was so…  _ alive _ that it was surreal to think he never had been.

“His body is damaged. Outdated. The technology he was built with is now old by his standards and it doesn’t help that he was in a horrible crash before we found him,” Naoki explained.

Kageyama didn’t want to pry, but he wanted answers. “Is he going to wake up?”

Naoki didn’t answer and his fingers froze on the keyboard. “His body is broken. Fried, actually.” He stood up and leaned over Hinata. He pointed out pieces of machinery, calling them names Kageyama didn’t understand, telling him what was wrong with them, why they didn’t work and why he couldn’t fix them.

Kageyama hadn’t a single idea Hinata was dealing with all this. He was always so happy and carefree. “Is that why he looks so young?”

Naoki gave a halfhearted chuckle. “His frame was made to look young, around 13 years old. But he’s matured impressively in his mental state. He’s incredibly smart, and would be more so if he hadn’t been damaged.” The man’s face twisted into a pained expression and he bent forward, pressing his face into his hands. “I can’t believe I let it get this far.”

Hinata face was so… passive and still. It was like he was sleeping, but - Kageyama realized - it was more like he was dead. The thought had Kageyama abruptly standing, his chair scraping against the floor. “I- I have to go.”

Naoki didn’t respond, his face still in his hands. Kageyama found his way out of the house, feeling like he was drifting. Hinata’s smiled was flashing through his mind, the way he moved, his energy and his laugh. Kageyama stepped off the porch and dropped to his knees. Hinata didn’t like to talk about himself. Hinata lied about having medical conditions. Hinata had to sit out of practice sometimes.

Hinata knew this was going to happen - and he let it.

_ “Nothing’s off about me, I’m just like you!” _

_ “I don’t like leaving things empty.” _

_ “Kageyama, here!” _

Hinata wasn’t alive. He’s a  _ robot _ . And Kageyama actually… The ravenette put a hand to his face in embarrassment, feeling how warm he had become. He picked himself up off the ground, feeling uncomfortable and lost, and slowly made his way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow sorry it's short but hey its a chapter


End file.
